The EU and Singapore initialed and published the text of the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA). The text contains the much criticized retail price damages, known from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the treaty the European Parliament rejected last year. On top of the retail price damages the judicial authorities have the authority to order the infringer to pay the right holder the infringer’s profits. This heightens the already very high damages.

Retail price damages in EUSFTA

Article 10.44.2 11.44.2 EUSFTA: “In determining the amount of damages for infringement of intellectual property rights, a Party’s judicial authorities shall have the authority to consider, inter alia, any legitimate measure of value the right holder submits, which may include lost profits, the value of the infringed goods or services measured by the market price, or the suggested retail price.” [fn 35] (pdf)

Infringer’s profits in EUSFTA

The article continues: “At least in cases of copyright or related rights infringement and trademark counterfeiting, each Party shall provide that its judicial authorities have the authority to order the infringer to pay the right holder the infringer’s profits that are attributable to the infringement, whether as an alternative to or in addition to or as part of the damages.” (emphasis added)

One of the options here is: in addition to the damages. That is above the ACTA damages.

Very high damages

Retail price damages can turn out very high. To give an example, a two terabyte hard disk can contain 540.000 songs. Imagine someone copies a hard disk full of songs. The rights holder can claim 540.000 euro, based on a retail price of 1 euro per song.

A judge may not award such damages, but the claim has a terrifying chilling effect. Who wouldn’t settle for one percent, 5400 euro? Otherwise, an infringer runs the risk of having to sell his or her house for copying a hard disk.

The threat of excessive damages payments will also have a chilling effect on Internet service providers, and so on the right to freedom of expression.

A second example. In emerging economies, including European, most people can’t afford to pay the retail price. They buy a copy, their only way to participate in cultural life – a human right.

Their enabler to the right to participate in cultural life may sell 100 illegal copies of a CD for 2 euro, the enabler then has a gross revenue of 200 euro. With damages based on retail price, the enabler may have to pay 2000 euro damages (100 x 20), ten times his gross revenue. And to add insult to injury, he may have to turn in his meager profits and may have his computer destroyed.

The secret negotiations led to ACTA-plus damages which will have a terrifying chilling effect and which will harm the right to freedom of expression, the right to participate in culture and the right to access to knowledge.

Some details

fn 35 reads: “In the case of the Union, this would also include, in appropriate cases, elements other than economic factors such as the moral prejudice caused to the right holder by the infringement.”

fn 33 reads: “A Party may exclude patents from the scope of Section C (Civil Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights).”

I’m not convinced by the commission’s answer. The commission writes that the overall principle is adequate damages, and “paragraph 2 of Article 11.44 of the EU-Singapore FTA only illustrates a wide range of optional methods”. Yes, but these optional methods are in my opinion above adequate, as I show above. When you give examples of adequate which are above adequate, you distort legal thinking, you mess with definitions.

Then, the article continues (see above) with “judicial authorities have the authority to order the infringer to pay the right holder the infringer’s profits that are attributable to the infringement, (…) in addition to (…) the damages.”

So this is in addition to the damages. Does the end result still have to be adequate, or can it go above that, as the text says “in addition”?

If the end result has to be adequate, just adequate without any addition would have been best. The FTA text is confusing, seems meant to create an upward trend.

The FTA exports EU law (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED): inaudita altera parte, injunctions, etc). I’m not happy with that, as it takes away policy space needed for reform. Last year we had a consultation on reform of IPRED, the FFII argued that the EU has to bring IPRED in line with the ICESCR.

FFII, 2013, EU law and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural,
Rights (pdf)

Exporting IPRED makes that harder, and makes reform vulnerable for both state-to-state and investor-to-state dispute settlement (if the latter makes it to the agreement, there are plans to add it at some point).

Regarding Glyn’s question below, which I had overlooked (apologies): Yes, like ACTA the council and parliament will have to ratify it.

And then? Possibly the commission will propose to update IPRED, oh, it is not a change, just bring language up to date… And so the IP ratchet goes on.

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Text as pdf, or below:

22 April 2013

Dear Members of the International Trade committee,

We are writing to express our concerns with the proposed trade agreement with the US (TTIP).

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==========================================================

(FFII press release) Text also below:

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[ Francais ] — [ Deutsch ]
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Brussels, 21 November 2012 — This monday, the Cypriot Presidency stated in parliament that they are “aware of concerns that the legislator can be deprived of their legislative competence”. In fact the new patent compromise is similar to the “a death certificate in patent law” for the European Parliament, says Benjamin Henrion, president of the FFII.

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On 13 November 2012 the FFII sent an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to the Court of Justice of the European Union. A few hours later the registry of the court informed the FFII that only the Member States, the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission may participate in the Opinion procedure and submit written statements.

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Today the FFII sent an amicus curiae brief about ACTA to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The FFII concludes that ACTA is not compatible with international human rights instruments, the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, or the European Treaties.

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This is my submission to the “Call for a progressive agenda on creation and innovation”, launched by the Greens / EFA in the European Parliament. It is partly inspired by Peter K. Yu, Intellectual Property and Human Rights in the Nonmultilateral Era.

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The pharmaceutical industry abuses patents to ask exorbitant prices, says Dr. Huub Schellekens, professor at Utrecht University, in an interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (11 August, paywall). In the Netherlands, one of the richest countries in the world, the “College van Zorgverzekeringen”, the government organization responsible for reimbursing medical costs, started a discussion on whether it is still possible to reimburse the high costs for treating the Fabry and Pompe diseases.

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On February 1, 2012, I filed a maladministration complaint against the European Parliament for systematically lying about the existence of documents. The complaint attracted attention from Members of the Parliament.

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Brussels, 23 July 2012 — The European Commission blocks TOR users’ access to its web site. TOR is an internet anonymisation technology and became widely popular for its facilitating role in the Arab spring movement.

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Today, the European Parliament rejected the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in a 478 to 39 vote with 165 abstentions. Before the vote the European People’s Party requested a vote on postponement of the vote.

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The European Parliament plenary session will discuss ACTA on the 3rd of July, followed by a plenary vote the next day. The biggest group in Parliament, the EPP, is still in favour of ACTA, and most committee votes were close.

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According to sources in the Parliament, Trade Commissioner De Gucht invited himself to the Parliament’s International Trade committee (INTA). He will address the committee just before the vote on ACTA.

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On 21 June, at 10 am, the European Parliament International Trade committee will vote on David Martin’s draft opinion on ACTA. The draft opinion recommends to Parliament to reject ACTA (“Declines to consent to conclusion of the agreement”).

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Tomorrow, Saturday 9 June, there will be more than 120 demonstrations against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Most of them take place in Europe, but there will also be demonstrations in Sendai (Japan), Montreal (QC, Canada), Kansas and New York (US).

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This week three European Parliament committees will vote on ACTA: Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Legal Affairs (JURI), and Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). Today the FFII sent letters to the three committees that will vote this week.

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On April 30th, the United States published its 2012 Special 301 Report (pdf). Among other things, the report targets poor countries for not spending enough on the enforcement of intellectual property rights – including EU member states Romania and Greece.

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The ACTA draft opinion of Dimitrios DROUTSAS was presented to the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. You could view a video recording of the meeting on the European Parliament website (start 11.15).

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Strasbourg, 27 april 2012 — British Telecom patent lawyer Simon Roberts warned that current plans for an EU patent court are a fuel for patent trolls. The current plans for an EU patent court will allow countries such as Germany to keep their bifucarted court system, which acts like a magnet for companies that want to enforce patents.

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The European Parliament Legal Affairs committee will consider its rapporteur’s draft opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on Wednesday 25 April 2012, at 16.50. The next day, 26 April 2012, at 10.00, the committee will vote on the adoption of the draft opinion (Agenda points 8 and 31).

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The European Digital Rights initiative published Marielle Gallo MEP’s (EPP, France) draft European Parliament Legal Affairs committee opinion on ACTA yesterday. She proposes the committee to support ACTA.

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Today the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats, the European Parliament’s second biggest group, held a meeting on ACTA. At the end of the meeting David Martin, the Parliament’s rapporteur on ACTA said his job as rapporteur is to balance hopes and fears and to make his recommendation on voting for or against ACTA.

According to the announcement there will be speakers from Amnesty International, ACCESS, Oxfam, Article19, Health Action International, Reporters Without Borders, Consumer Rights groups, Knowledge Ecology Online, an SME organization, International Federation of Library Associations, Academics and Researchers, High level advisors and the Council of Europe.

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The European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) rapporteur on ACTA Amelia Andersdotter published the draft ITRE opinion. In the draft, the committee calls on the Committee on International Trade, as the committee responsible, to propose that Parliament withholds its consent to ACTA.

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Brussels, 1st April 2012 — The Council of European ministers agreed today on the location of the future European Patent Court, which is going to be located in Sealand, 10 kilometers off the English coast. The European patent community has finally achieved independence from elected parliaments.

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Karlsruhe, 28 March 2012 — 1&1, GMX and WEB.DE receive the German Document Freedom Award for the use of Open Standards. The prize is awarded by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure e.V. (FFII).

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Rainer Wieland, Vice President of the European Parliament, has decided not to release the legal service’s opinion on ACTA (letter 14 March 2012, pdf). With this decision he confirms the decision taken earlier by the Secretary General, the FFII then received a blacked out version (picture above).

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The FFII just sent a letter to the ACTA rapporteur for the European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee. The Committee will exchange views on ACTA in its meeting on Monday 26 March 2012, 15.00 — 18.30.

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The European Commission decided to ask the EU Court of Justice an opinion on ACTA. Commissioner Karel De Gucht stated: “We are planning to ask Europe’s highest court to assess whether ACTA is incompatible – in any way – with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and information or data protection and the right to property in case of intellectual property.”

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As a treatment provider for LDC, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is deeply concerned about the impact of ACTA as part of a larger enforcement agenda on the production and supply of affordable, legitimate medicines. They urge contracting States not to sign or ratify ACTA unless all concerns related to access to medicines are fully addressed.

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The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is adopted under the so called “Global Europe” strategy of the European Commission. In its resolution of 22 May 2007 on Global Europe – external aspects of competitiveness the European Parliament demanded with regard to intellectual property rights:

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Yesterday, the Dutch Parliament adopted a resolution asking the minister not to sign ACTA as long as it is not conclusively established that ACTA does not conflict with fundamental rights. The resolution mentions the possibility to ask the Court of Justice an opinion on ACTA.

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According to the not corrected minutes, the Dutch Parliament adopted this motion:

The Chamber,

heard the discussion,

whereas the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is or will be submitted for adoption to the European Parliament and national parliaments of the Member States of the European Union;

whereas five Member States of the European Union, including the Netherlands, did not sign the treaty;

whereas according to Article 218, paragraph 11 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, each Member State may obtain the opinion of the Court of Justice as to whether an agreement envisaged is compatible with the Treaties;

whereas several scientific studies conclude that ACTA is possibly at odds with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights;

whereas the possible effects of this Treaty for the in the Dutch Constitution recognized freedoms such as the freedom of expression and information and the right to privacy have not been explored,

asks the Government not to sign the ACTA treaty as long as it is not conclusively established that the treaty does not conflict with fundamental rights,

and proceeds to the order of the day. SP, PvdD, PvdA, GroenLinks, D66, ChristenUnie and PVV voted for the resolution, it was adopted.

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The Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament officially envoked 36 of the Rules of Procedure concerning ACTA. In a letter to the Parliament President Jerzy Buzek from October 2011 group leaders Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit officially envoked RoP 36(2).

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Today there will be over 200 demonstrations against ACTA in Europe. I made a one page handout that lists studies and opinions on ACTA: http://people.ffii.org/~ante/acta/Studies-on-ACTA.pdf

Below a version with more quotes:

Opinion of European Academics on ACTA: “Contrary to the European Commission’s repeated statements and the European Parliament’s resolution of 24 November 2010, certain ACTA provisions are not entirely compatible with EU law and will directly or indirectly require additional action on the EU level.”

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Brussels, 10 February 2012 — The Consumer Committee (IMCO) within the European Parliament is considering an overhaul of the current standardisation system in Europe. The FFII presents a paper on the proposed recognition of ICT specifications from consortia.

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Members of the European Parliament could submit as many written parliament questions to the Council and the Commission as they like and force these institutions to make official statements. If you have a technical question about specific ACTA provisions or procedural oddities feel free to suggest your Member of Parliament to table them.

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We discovered a smoking gun on the criminal sanctions aspect of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). A declassified document reveals that the Commission made proposals and fundamentally steered the negotiations on criminal sanctions in ACTA for which no corresponding EU harmonisation exists.

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I just filed a maladministration complaint with the Ombudsman against the European Parliament for systematically lying about the existence of documents:

The European Parliament cultivates secrecy. On 21 June 2011, the coordinators of the International Trade committee (INTA) decided to ask the Parliament’s legal service an opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

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Brussels, 26 January 2012 — Today the European Union and member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Tokyo, Japan. Signing is a first step to enable later ratification of the controversial agreement.

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As we reported earlier, tomorrow, Tuesday 24 January 2012, around 16.30 Paris time, the European Parliament Committee on Development will hold an exchange of views on ACTA. Today, the FFII sent the committee a letter.

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Today the FFII sent a letter to the European Parliament about the EP legal service’s opinion on ACTA. (pfd version)
Brussels, 23 January 2012 — The European Parliament’s legal service consistently overlooks known issues with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII).

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We welcome the decision to release the European Parliament legal service’s opinion on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). We have compared the legal service’s opinion with multiple academic opinions on ACTA and some civil society analyses.

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At a Dutch House of Representatives’ committee meeting, 13 December 2011, minister of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, Maxime Verhagen, said the refusal to provide access to the European Parliament’s legal service’s opinion on ACTA is “gek”: odd/crazy/silly. The European Parliament’s International Trade Committee asked the legal service for an opinion on ACTA.

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The JURI Report, the newsletter of the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee, is a very positive about ACTA. “Thus, it will provide benefits for EU exporting right holders operating in the global market who currently suffer systematic and widespread infringements of their copyrights, trademarks, patents, designs and geographical indications abroad.”

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As things stand now, the European Parliament committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety will not formulate an opinion on ACTA. Despite all the analysis work done on the effects ACTA will have on access to medicine, and despite health groups informed the Parliament, no Member of Parliament has asked the committee to formulate one.

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On the same day that the European Parliament had its first secret meeting on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), the Dutch parliament decided it will not take ACTA into consideration unless all ACTA negotiation texts are published. A few weeks ago, the Dutch House of Representatives’ committee of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation requested the ACTA negotiation texts (the earlier versions of ACTA).

Please find attached and below a letter from civil society — including digital rights, access to medicines, free software and human rights organisations — regarding the INTA meeting on 23 November, at which an unpublished Opinion of the European Parliament Legal Service on ACTA will be discussed in-camera. I am happy to discuss this particular meeting and the ACTA process more generally, so please do not hesitate to contact me directly at [TELEPHONE NUMBER] or by email at [EMAIL ADDRESS].

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On 9 November we sent the Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade (INTA), Mr Moreira, an open letter in which we protested against an INTA meeting behind closed doors on ACTA. On 10 November Mr Moreira replied.

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Brussels, 9 November 2011 — On 23 November the European Parliament Committee on International Trade will discuss ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) behind closed doors. In a letter to the Chairman of the committee, Mr Moreira, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure objects to the meeting being held behind closed doors.

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The European Parliament’s register released the International Trade (INTA) committee’s coordinators’ minutes on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Prior to the release, the Parliament’s services denied the existence of these minutes four times.

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When the European Parliament adopted its position on the proposed EU draft directive on criminal sanctions they also included the following safeguards, a fair use provision. Member States shall ensure that the fair use of a protected work, including such use by reproduction in copies or audio or by any other means, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research, does not constitute a criminal offence.

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Brussels, 14 October 2011 — In an open letter to the members of the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee, the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) urges them to formulate an opinion on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). ACTA is a multilateral agreement which proposes international standards for enforcement of intellectual property rights.

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EU level Criminal law is a very delicate issue. In the European Parliament a new document from the Commission would be examined: “Towards an EU Criminal Policy: Ensuring the effective implementation of EU policies through criminal law”.

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On Saturday, October 1, 2011, parties that have completed relevant domestic processes will sign ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). For background information on who will sign, see: Who is Signing ACTA: State of Play Cont’d (EU will not sign)

FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) statement:

The world faces major challenges: access to medicine, diffusion of green technology needed to fight climate change, and a balanced Internet governance.

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A few years ago, an amendment making sure that parallel importation was not criminalised in the EU disappeared after it was adopted in the European Parliament. This summer, the Chairman of the International Trade committee (INTA), Mr Vital Moreira, rewrote a question the INTA committee asked the Parliament’s Legal Services regarding ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).

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Letter to the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee
2 September 2011

Dear Members of the Legal Affairs Committee,

A new study on ACTA, commissioned by the Greens/EFA, concludes that ACTA is incompatible with fundamental European human rights instruments and -standards. [1] We believe the Parliament should ask the European Court of Justice an opinion on this delicate issue.

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The European Parliament Register released three documents on the European Parliament INTA Committee commissioned study on ACTA. The “Terms of Reference” document (pdf), dated 15 November 2010, is the most interesting.

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A few years after the ratification of the 1994 WTO TRIPS agreement (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), the AIDS epidemic took millions of lives in Africa. Protected by TRIPS, pharmaceutical companies sold AIDS medicine in Africa for prices higher than in the US.

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The European Parliament Committee on International Trade requested the Parliament’s Legal Service an opinion on ACTA (pdf). Compared with the request US Senator Wyden made, and seen the European academics Opinion on ACTA, the questions are very narrow.

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This afternoon the FFII has requested minutes of European Parliament Committee meetings on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). ACTA was concluded in December 2010 after three years of confidential negotiations.

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Sources say that the European Parliament’s Trade Committee (INTA) will tomorrow consider asking the Parliament’s Legal service to answer questions about ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Here are some questions the FFII would like to suggest.

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The recent European Commission IPR strategy paper also mentions ACTA. It is quite odd how they highlight an unsubstantiated claim that the ACTA text was in line with the acquis despite evidence of the contrary.

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The EU Commission published a new version of the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) text (pdf). A Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan announcement mentions an April 15 round of negotiations: “The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was opened for signature on May 1, following its adoption by participants in its negotiations on April 15.”

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Brussels, 24 May 2011 — The European Parliament should decisively resolve uncertainties regarding ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), according to an open letter to the Members of the European Parliament by the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure). The FFII urges the Parliament to seek an opinion of the European Court of Justice on the compatibility of ACTA with the EU Treaties, and to commission independent assessments of the effects ACTA will have on access to medicine, diffusion of green technologies needed to fight climate change, fundamental rights, innovation, small and medium sized companies and a fair balance of interests.

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Some US rightsholder associations and industry players do not want the European Parliament to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) about the inconsistencies of the ACTA treaty with the European treaties. The letter is directed to Polish MEP Jerzy Buzek who is the President of our European Parliament and a member of the European Peoples Party (EPP) group.

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In January 2011, prominent European academics issued an “Opinion of European Academics on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA). The academics invite the European institutions, in particular the European Parliament, and the national legislators and governments to withhold consent of ACTA, “…as long as significant deviations from the EU acquis or serious concerns on fundamental rights, data protection, and a fair balance of interests are not properly addressed”.

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On the 30th of March, 2011, the FFII and FSFE awarded tagesschau.de the DFD Award for its use of Open Standards in broadcasting content. Berlin and Hamburg Fellows joined the event to celebrate the important role of tagesschau.de in spreading Document Freedom, eat a piece of pie, and have a chat about Freedom and Open Source Software and Open Document formats.

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Berlin, March 31st 2011 — The FFII answered a consultation call from the European Commission General Directorate Internal Market on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. For the EU to help startup companies, the FFII advises to reduce market entrance risks for innovative companies.

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FFII response to the Consultation on the Commission Report on the enforcement of intellectual property rights

(Also available as pdf)

March 2011

Summary

We would like to thank the European Commission for this opportunity to provide feedback on the Report. To stimulate startup companies, the EU legal situation should minimize market entrance risks for innovators.

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Brussels, March 21st 2011 — The European Parliament wants to make software producers liable for defects. Ahead of the vote on the Consumer Rights Directive on Thursday 24 March, a political agreement amongst the groups in the European Parliament would put software and webservices providers liable for damages under the goal of providing consumer protection.

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Brussels, 11 March 2011 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) supports asking the European Court of Justice an opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). On Monday 21 March 2011 the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee may vote on a proposal for such a request.

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On Monday 21 March 2011, the Legal Affairs Committee may vote on a proposal to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) an opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The FFII strongly supports asking the ECJ an opinion.

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A Whitehouse Intellectual Property annual report Feb 2011 unsurprisingly mentions ACTA
In the Strategy, we committed to promote enforcement of U.S. intellectual property rights through trade policy. On November 15, USTR concluded negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the text of the agreement was finalized on December 3.

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Brussels, 7 February 2011 — A study commissioned by the European Commission advocates the abolition of the national prosecutor’s discretion whether to prosecute and how to charge the defendant. It also argues in favor of a European criminal court and for the criminalisation of patent infringements.

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Already on 24 or 25 November 2010, the Commission and Council Presidency initialled ACTA. This became clear at the Ad hoc meeting – Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a DG Trade meeting to inform and consult civil society about ACTA.

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Here it is, the missing answer to Dutch MEP M. Schaake, which as the document shows was indeed published far too late although referenced in earlier statements to other parties. The Commission arrogant as ever simply disputes the substance.

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The resolution on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) adopted by the European Parliament on November 24th 2010, contains fundamental flaws. The resolution expresses a belief that ACTA can not change present EU laws.

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“Contrary to the European Commission’s repeated statements and the European Parliament’s resolution of 24 November 2010, certain ACTA provisions are not entirely compatible with EU law and will directly or indirectly require additional action on the EU level. The following is a non-exhaustive list of illustrations that indicate the general tendency of ACTA: (…/…)

Taking above into account,

the Signatories of the Opinion invite the European institutions, in particular the European Parliament, and the national legislators and governments,

to carefully consider the above mentioned points and, as long as significant deviations from the EU acquis or serious concerns on fundamental rights, data protection, and a fair balance of interests are not properly addressed, to withhold consent.”

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Member of Parliament Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens) wants to ask the “legal service of the Parliament if the final Version of ACTA and its foreseen legislative procedure is in line with the Treaties of the European Union and which legal possibilities there are for the European Parliament to challenge this in front of the European Court of Justice”. It seems Chairman Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP) is rather hesitant to do this.

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Brussels, 19 January 2011 — The European Union advances on a super-fast track on the “enhanced cooperation” for unitary patent protection among a coalition of the willing after an envisaged Community Patent has once again failed to reach consensus in the Council, attributed to the linguistic divide. The fast move puts aside democratic scrutiny, questions on legality and European unity.

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ACTA Parliament question E-8847 from MEP Marietje Schaakes is still not answered, even if Commission refers to it. E-8294 De Gucht answer to MEP Keller, excerpt:

As the Commission has explained in its detailed response to Question E-8847/10 the Commission has carefully ensured, at every step of the negotiations, respect for Article 15 TFEU in particular by providing regular information to civil society and access to documents on the basis of the relevant legislation.

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The European Commission quickly mentions ACTA in the Christmas review paper on the EU enforcement directive, the 2004 directive which roughly correspondonds to the civil enforcement chapter of ACTA:

Infringements of intellectual property rights taking place outside of the EU also constitute a major source of concern. The Commission is addressing them in different ways, for instance by including ambitious chapters on intellectual property rights in bilateral trade agreements and through participation in international initiatives, such as the on-going negotiation of the ACTA agreement.

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Brussels, 5 January 2011 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) requests proof that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement’s criminal measures are essential. The EU can only harmonise criminal measures if approximation of criminal laws and regulations of its Member States proves essential to ensure the effective implementation of a Union policy.

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The New York Times writes about China’s policy to promote issuing more patents. “In a recent interview, David J. Kappos, director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, pointed to the Chinese targets for 2015 and called them ‘mind-blowing numbers.’

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According to European Parliament sources, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has already been initialed. That would be amazing: normally the initialling of a trade agreement is a PR moment.

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Transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was widely criticized. This month leaked US diplomatic cables demonstrated that the EU Council rotating presidencies were highly aware of the lack of transparency and due process.

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P-8950/10EN Answer given by De Gucht on behalf of the Commission (29.11.2010)
The relevant provisions of ACTA were negotiated by the rotating EU Presidency on behalf of the EU Member States. Therefore, the Presidency is best placed to respond to this question.

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Question for written answer to the Commission, Françoise Castex (S&D): ACTA
Article 1.2 of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) states the following: ‘Each Party shall be free to determine the appropriate method of implementing the provisions of this Agreement within its own legal system and practice.’

At recent meetings in Washington the US Trade Representative has told other US agencies, NGOs and legislators that ACTA is not binding and that its Article 1.2 allows for complete flexibility in respect of any US legal provision that might contradict ACTA. Indeed, Articles 2.2 and 2.X of ACTA, which deal with damages and injunctions respectively, are at odds with the ‘US Affordable Care Act’, which places clear limits on remedies for infringements of patents on medicines.

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For the past past months Commissioner Karel De Gucht cheated the Members of the European Parliament about the lack of competence of the European Union to negotiate ACTA criminal measures, and overplayed the known fact in Plenary that there is no related Acquis existing. Many Members of Parliament trust De Gucht’s promises made that ACTA fully complies with the Acquis.

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Brussels, 16 December 2010 – The European Commission adopted a communication “Towards interoperability for European public services”, introducing the second incarnation of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and the European Interoperability Strategy (EIS) [1]. This week the Commission also published fresh Horizontal Guidelines [2] which bloc-exempt patent cartels from competition enforcement.

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In a Guardian interview this week Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stressed the importance of their disclosure of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Agreement (ACTA). European observers do not have to rely on leaks because public transparency is a right of citizens under the Lisbon treaty.

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Europe’s e-communications providers call on the European Commission to reflect EP demand for ACTA not to modify the EU acquis – Europe’s leading e-communications service providers welcome the efforts of both the
European Parliament and the Commission to address concerns regarding the potentially negative impact of
the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on the EU citizens’ rights and on the existing balance between
IPR enforcement and user’s privacy. Press release of CableEurope, ETNO, EuroISPA,GSMA

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The views expressed on the negotiations being conducted by the Commission regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) often stress the high degree of secrecy surrounding the talks. Bearing in mind the provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requiring the European Parliament to be kept informed of any discussions conducted by the Commission in the context of its powers under Title V of that Treaty, and in the light of the written questions previously tabled: 1.

In the Civil Enforcement section of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), paragraph 1 of Article 2.X: Injunctions allows judicial authorities to issue an order (injunction) against a party, or a third party, to ‘prevent infringing goods from entering into the channels of commerce’. This injunction power is considerably different from that existing under the EU acquis (Article 9 of the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (Directive 2004/48/EC)), which permits injunctions ‘to prevent any imminent infringement’.

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Berlin, Nov 18th 2010 — India has just adopted an open standards preference policy. In contrast, the directorates for Internal Market and Trade recently hindered an adoption of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) 2.0 during the European Commission’s inter-service consultations.

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Brussels, 11 November 2010 — The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) criminalises ordinary companies and individuals, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). In an open letter to the European Parliament, the FFII urges the Parliament to obtain the opinion of the Court of Justice as to whether ACTA is compatible with the EU Treaties.

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Question for written answer P-9459/2010 to the Commission
Rule 117 Emine Bozkurt (S&D)

Subject: ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)
The Commission submitted the final text on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) on 6 October. Regarding the text of the agreement and the finalising of the details, can the Commission answer the following questions:

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Today adopted: European Parliament resolution of 11 November 2010 on the forthcoming EU-US Summit and the Transatlantic Economic Council

42. Emphasises the importance of close transatlantic cooperation on the digital agenda, such as the digital market, internet freedom in the world, net neutrality, the right of privacy, common standards, transparency and the rule of law in relation to ACTA;

43.

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Question for written answer E-8847/2010 to the Commission Rule 117
Marietje Schaake (ALDE)
Subject: ACTA – a law enforcement treaty? There is public concern worldwide about the lack of formal transparency
in the ACTA negotiation process, such as illustrated in the article
‘ACTA Guide, Part Three: Transparency and ACTA Secrecy’, by Professor
Michael Geist (see http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4737/125/).

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Brussels, 25 October 2010 — The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not in line with present EU laws, according to a Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) analysis. Previously, the European Commission has often stated that ACTA would remain fully in line with existing EU legislation.

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Article 83
(ex Article 31 TEU)
1. The European Parliament and the Council may, by means of directives adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, establish minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in the areas of particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension resulting from the nature or impact of such offences or from a special need to combat them on a common basis.

In the WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council), the enforcement of intellectual property rights is a topic of formal discussion including, but not limited to, discussion of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The WTO is also the forum in which India and Brazil are pursuing consultations with the EU over seizures of in-transit generic drugs on grounds of alleged patent infringement.

Many people feel that provisions contained in the Anti‑Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) make telecom operators liable for copyright infringements committed by customers using their networks. In the Commission’s view, does this mean that, in practice, operators will be required to remove Internet access from customers whom they suspect of copyright infringement – without proper judicial review of such actions – in order not to incur penalties?

In its resolution of 10 March 2010, Parliament:
— was ‘deeply concerned that no legal base was established before the start of the ACTA negotiations and that parliamentary approval for the negotiating mandate was not sought’;
— instructed the Commission to conduct impact assessments ‘prior to any EU agreement on a consolidated ACTA treaty text’. A Commission trade spokesperson informed MEPs that the negotiators in Tokyo had ‘produced a consolidated and largely finalised text’ and that the Government of Japan had ‘hosted informal meetings’ with business leaders(1);

The Commission has silently withdrawn the IPRED2 proposal for a directive on criminal sanctions (2005/0127/COD)(2).

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Karel De Gucht, Member of the European Commission (20 Oct 2010). Mr President, honourable Members, you asked me to come to the plenary to explain where we are in the negotiations on ACTA – the international Anti‑Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

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Karel De Gucht, Member of the Commission (20 Oct 2010)
Mr President, first of all there have been several interventions claiming that the implementation of ACTA would lead to limiting civil liberties, and several pointed out the control of laptops, or of air passengers at borders for example. The joint declaration of 16 April issued by all the ACTA parties is quite clear.

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The MEPs from the Green Group in the European Parliament ask crucial technical questions about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement as “priority questions”. These questions address the tip of an iceberg concerning technical issues with the ACTA, there is much more that can be raised.

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Brussels, 6 October 2010 — The negotiating parties published the consolidated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) text. The following statement can be attributed to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII):
“The EU still wants punitive measures against patent infringements in ACTA.

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Brussels, 5 October 2010 — In a radio interview held last Thursday, Mr Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgian Minister of the Economy, tried to explain that the current situation concerning software patents in Europe was fine, and that the current plans are not intended to “change the patent system to make software programming more difficult”. The FFII says this is wrong, considering the thousands of software patents already granted by the European Patent Office (EPO).

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Knowledge Ecology International has posted the latest leaked version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) text, the Washington DC August 2010 text. The FFII published the following statement:

We are disappointed the EU still wants punitive measures against patent infringements in ACTA.

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Berlin, Sept 15th 2010 — A European Parliament majority accepted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which iterates the calls to European Commissioner Karel de Gucht for more legislative transparency. In a speech before the European Parliament Commissioner Karel De Gucht threatened the United States to leave negotiations when geographical indications would be “discriminated”, that is excluded from the scope of the negotiations on ACTA.

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Strasbourg, Sept 21, 2010 — Today the European Parliament plenary adopted a report on completing the internal market for e-commerce prepared by Spanish rapporteur Pablo Arias Echeverría (EPP). The reports highlights the importance of an open document exchange format for electronic business interoperation and calls on the European Commission to take concrete steps to support its emergence and spread.

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Berlin, Sept 17th 2010 — This week the 5th meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2010) took place in Vilnius. The United Nations organised it as a multi-stakeholder dialogue on global internet governance which inherited from the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

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Berlin, Sept 15th 2010 — A European Parliament majority accepted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which iterates the calls to European Commissioner Karel de Gucht for more legislative transparency. In a speech before the European Parliament Commissioner Karel De Gucht threatened the United States to leave negotiations when geographical indications would be “discriminated”, that is excluded from the scope of the negotiations on ACTA.

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Brussels, 27 July 2010 — According to the EU Ombudsman, citizens have a clear interest in being informed about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Despite this, he concludes for formal reasons that there was no maladministration by the Council of the European Union when it denied access to the ACTA documents.

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2010-06-12 Workshop about current developments in software patents and open standards at LinuxTag 2010 in Berlin. 2010-03-16/17/18 Booth of FFII France at “Solutions Linux / Open Source 2010” in Paris, France.

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Washington, D.C., June 29th 2010 — The Supreme Court of the United States delivered its ruling on the Bilski landmark case yesterday. A split court issued a very narrow ruling, avoiding broad decisions on patentability.

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Brussels, June 4th 2010 — The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) may hamper the fight against climate change by inhibiting the diffusion of green technology, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). Behind closed doors, the European Union, United States, Japan and other trade partners are negotiating an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

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Berlin, May 27th 2010 — Following a recent high court judgement in Germany wireless networks are becoming a legal concern for consumers running open WiFi hotspots. Lawyers and lobby organisations are sending automated cease and desist letters to consumers who have an “insecure” WiFi access point, accusing them of helping unauthorized file sharing by offering open WiFi internet connections.

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Berlin, May 19th 2010 — Today Google announced it would make the VP8 codec open source and royalty-free as part of their WebM project. The codec is on par with other video codecs for high video quality and can be used in the emerging HTML5 web standard for playing video content natively in a web browser.

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Munich, 13 May 2010 — The highest appeal chamber of the European Patent Office, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA), has decided on patents for computer programs. The questions on point of law from President Brimelow were decided to be “inadmissible” under Article 112(1)(b) EPC. It chided the President for bothering the board with her questions.

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Berlin, May 31th 2010 — The European Parliament would spend five million EUR to give an Apple iPad to every Member of Parliament under an “IT mobility” budget earmark, an investigative journalist of the British newspaper Times asserts. An iPad costs around 550 Euro and there are 736 representatives.

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Strasbourg, 16 April 2010 – Business Europe fiercely opposes a role for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in patent law. During a conference in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Thierry Sueur of Business Europe disclosed the United Patent Litigation System (UPLS) was aimed to keep the ECJ away from interpreting substantive patent law under the European Patent Convention (EPC), particularly for software patentability.

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Brussels, April 8th 2010 – An ACTA Oversight Committee will undermine the European Parliament’s power in intellectual property rights enforcement, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). A recently leaked Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) document shows negotiating parties want to create an “Oversight Committee”, which is planned to supervise the implementation and consider the further development of ACTA.

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Brussels, April 8th 2010 – Until this week everyone interested in interoperability within the context of public service delivery has been invited to send suggestions aiming at contributing to the implementation of the European Interoperability Strategy. FFII e.V. contributed a short 5 pages opinion paper to the consultation of the European Commission.

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Berlin, March 31st 2010 – On today’s “Document Freedom Day” the German radio stations Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur and Austrian Radio Orange were lauded for their usage of the open Ogg Vorbis format for live streaming. In Berlin staff members of Deutschlandradio received an award certificate and a big cake with the slogan “rOgg on!”.

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Brussels, 10 January 2010 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) calls upon the EU Parliament and member states to remove the intellectual property rights chapter from the EU – Korea Free Trade Agreement. According to the FFII analysis, the free trade agreement is a threat to software companies, companies that use software, and free software projects; this undermines innovation, competitiveness and legal certainty.

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2009-12-16 2nd meeting of the CENATIC Advisory Council with the participation as member of Alberto Barrionuevo representing FFII. 2009-12-04 to 13 (possible) meeting with the informatization board of the Cuban Ministry of Communications and Informatics, La Habana, Cuba, by Alberto Barrionuevo.

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Brussels, 6. November 2009 –This week a Dutch journalist, Brenno de Winter, alerted the public about a new draft for an upcoming European Interoperability Framework (EIF) 2.0 communication of the European Commission.

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Washington DC, 6 October 2009 — The Foundation for a Free Informational Infrastructure (FFII) and IP Justice filed an Amicus Curiae Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case Bilski v. Kappos is expected to become a landmark ruling on the future of the U.S. patent system.

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Brussels, 21 September 2009 — The EU and South Korea plan to initial a Free Trade Agreement in October. The trade agreement includes civil, border and criminal measures on the enforcement of copyright, trade mark rights, patents and other exclusive rights.

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Brussels, 12 May 2009 — The European Commission is pushing for software patents via a centralised trusted patent court that would be created with the United Patent Litigation System (UPLS), an international treaty that would remove national courts. This court system would be shielded against any review by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

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Brussels, 8 May 2009 — A record number of amicus briefs have been received by European Patent Office (EPO) in their latest attempt to justify granting of software patents. The EPO’s latest attempt to validate their widely criticized practice of software patenting has been met with a much stronger response than expected.

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FFII members participation on critical activities about the European Patent System in Munich on 15th April 2009. Hartmut Pilch invited Richard Stallman to give a speech and educate the public about Software Patents.

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Brussels, 2 April 2009 — The EU Council leaves the possibility open to pass the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) silently during parliamentary vacation. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) opposes such secret legislation.

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Brussels & Munich, 1st April 2009 — After years of confidential work, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) today announce a radical way to improve software patent quality: Binaries-As-Prior-Art, or BAPA. BAPA combines a database of billions of compiled computer programs (“binaries”) with a powerful Cloud search engine that can find any invention in microseconds.

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Brussels, 17 March 2009 — At the highest level of the European Patent Office (EPO), the legality of software patents in Europe is about to be tested. The FFII warns that the European Parliament is being bypassed by allowing a decision with EU-wide implications to be made without its involvement or any real debate.

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Brussels, 13 January 2009 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) has filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against the EU Council for deliberately obstructing access to Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents. As stated by an other participant in the negotiations, the EU has agreed to keep ACTA drafts secret.

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Berlin, 12 December 2008 – Backed by the FFII and other organisations, software developers launch a petition in 28 languages to stop software patents and protect European innovators. The petition asks for legislative clarifications to clear out the legal uncertainty and imbalances created by software patents.

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Paris, Munich, Campos, December 1st 2008 – the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) released during the Open World Forum the first conclusions of its workgroup on Total Information Outsourcing (TIO). TIO is a recent trend in the management of corporate information systems which consists of outsourcing critical information infrastructure to Web based services.

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Brussels, 10th November 2008 – The EU Council of Ministers refuses to release secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) had requested these documents to make public and parliamentary scrutiny possible.

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Brussels, 2nd September 2008 — A global coalition of more than 80 software companies, associations and developers has declared the 24th of September to be the “World Day Against Software Patents”. Five years ago, on 24 September 2003, the European Parliament adopted amendments to limit the scope of patent law and thereby protect small software companies from the harmful effects of broad and trivial software patents.

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Brussels, 04 July 2008 — Amendments to the European Telecommunications directive being rushed through the European Parliament propose a “Soviet internet” where software publishers and internet service providers watch traffic and data for Hollywood. Software and services that run on the internet would have to ask for permission of the regulators.

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Munich, 21 May 2008 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) today endorsed two petitions which call for the use of free and open standards in e-government to ensure all citizens’ rights to fair and equal interaction with political institutions. In a letter [1] to the Members of the European Parliament the association urges them to back these initiatives and implement the requested changes.

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Brussels, 13 May 2008 — European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of the year.

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Brussels, 7 April 2008 — Four years after the European Commission first proposed criminal measures against infringements of so called intellectual property rights, the Commission has started a study to find out whether such measures are actually needed. The study was started half a year after the European Parliament concluded its first reading on the latest proposal, IPRED2, the Criminal Measures directive.

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Brussels, 2 April 2008 — ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process.

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Brussels, Feb 19, 2008 — Nicola Zingaretti, rapporteur on intellectual property rights enforcement in the European Parliament, is calling on the EU to take urgent action against “some internet users”, who in his view are engaging in “the increasingly systematic violation of copyright”. Zingaretti has asked the European Council to provide a time frame for discussion of the draft directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

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What happened in Q3 and Q4 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-11-07 US Ars: Patent holding company targets 131 companies over SMS patents

2007-11-12 UK ClickPress: UK High Court set to review government restrictions on the patenting of software

2007-11-07 US OReilly: Sun’s counter-attack on NetApp and the defense of free software…

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Munich, 7 December 2007 — EPO rules for full revocation after a hearing in the opposition of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII e.V.) against Amazon.com’s infamous patent on the online purchase of gifts. The patent EP927945 is a descendant of the controversial One-Click Patent, which was granted to Amazon in the USA but was partially revoked there due to lack of novelty in October 2007.

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Brussels, 23 October 2007 — EU Commissioner Kroes’ deal with Microsoft creates real dangers to Europe’s growing open source economy, warns the FFII. Using patent licenses that exclude businesses, the software monopolist has turned the EU competition ruling into a victory, and now gets implicit support from the Commission to proceed aggressively against its competitors.

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Brussels, 17 October 2007 — The FFII congratulates Eric S. Maskin, an economist who has long criticised the patenting of software, for receiving the 2007 Nobel Prize for Economics. Prof. Maskin and two colleagues receive the Prize for research into the optimal design of economic mechanisms. By applying his theory to the IT sector, Maskin demonstrated “that in such a dynamic industry, patent protection may reduce overall innovation and welfare.”

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Paris, 1st October 2007 — Wednesday afternoon, during the adoption of the London Protocol to simplify patent translations, a number of deputies raised serious concerns regarding EPLA, the European Patent Litigation Agreement. Former Minister of Justice, M. Pascal Clément was the first to criticize the EPO’s plan: “France runs the risk of entirely abandoning its sovereignty over the matter of patents, to the benefit of a structure which would not even be part of the European Community.”

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Brussels, 1st October 2007 — Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII’s “Kayak Prize 2007”, offered by the FFII in its <NO>OOXML call for rejection of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) standards proposal. The software monopolist is honored as “Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization”.

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Brussels, 17 September 2007 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) says that Microsoft was expecting the 17 September verdict of the EU’s anti-trust case, and will exploit software patents to keep its monopoly grip on the global IT market. FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, “The decision seems positive but it is five years out of date.

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Brussels, 5 September 2007. The draft standard OOXML submitted by Microsoft and ECMA has been rejected in a vote at ISO, reaching neither the required 2/3 majority among “participating countries” nor the required 3/4 majority among all countries.

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Brussels, 1 August 2007 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) warns that two major decisions in September will define the future of interoperability in the key desktop computing market. FFII President Pieter Hintjens explains: “Around the world, national boards of ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) are voting on a proposal to accept ‘Ecma 376’, Microsoft’s Office format, as an international standard.

Related

What happened in July 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-07-31 US Oreilly: Microsoft Reaches Settlement on EOLAS Patent

2007-07-27 US CodingHorror: The Coming Software Patent Apocalypse

2007-07-31 US internetnews: RealNetworks Case Highlights Sea-Change In Patent Law

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What happened in June 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-06-29 EU IPkat: EPLA or bust?

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Brussels, June 27, 2007 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), said that it was putting up a 2,500 Euro prize in its fight against Microsoft’s attempt to gain international standardisation for its Office format. Veteran FFII campaigner Benjamin Henrion, founder of the noOOXML.org site, explains: “Microsoft is spending millions on rent-a-crowd support for international certification for its proprietary Office format, OOXML.

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What happened in May 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-05-30 US ZDNet: Kill the patents, kill the problem

2007-05-30 US eWeek: MS Sees No Conflict with Its Patent/Open Source Initiatives

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Brussels, 4 May 2007 — Over thirty renowned international speakers assemble on 15 and 16 May in Brussels’ Metropole Hotel to discuss the future of the European Patent System. Among the topics being discussed are the recently published plans of the EU Commission for a new European patent system, and recent important decisions in the US Supreme Court, and new data and research from the USA about the impact of the patent system on the high-tech sector.

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Strasbourg, 25 April 2007 — The European Parliament today accepted the IP Criminal Measures directive after its first reading in a vote of 374 to 278, and 17 abstentions. It left several unexamined rights in the scope, and threatens to criminalise consumers and incriminate ISPs.

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Strasbourg, 24 April 2007 – Tomorrow, 25 April, the European Parliament will vote on the first Community criminal law ever, the Criminal Measures IP directive. Last week a coalition representing European consumers, innovators and library associations has called on Members of the Parliament to amend the Criminal Measures IP directive.

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Brussels, 13 April 2007 — On 15 and 16 May, over thirty experts from universities, institutions, government, and industry gather in Brussels to discuss the question “What future for the patent system in Europe?” Among the speakers are William Kovacic, US Federal Trade Commissioner, Ron Marchant, former Chief Executive of the UK Patent Office, Prof. Reto Hilty of the Max Planck Institute, and South African entrepreneur and industry leader Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, Ltd.

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What happened in April 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-04-30 US Reuters: Top court rules for Microsoft on patent (in the ATT vs MSFT case)

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Brussels, 4 April 2007 — EU Commissioner McCreevy today announced his plans for an EU-wide patent law. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, which represents more than 3,000 small-to-medium IT firms and 8,000 IT professionals, says that this proposal is based on flawed assumptions and will make it easier for large US companies to sue small European IT firms.
FFII President Pieter Hintjens explains, “The EU is following the US down the risky path of a central patent jurisdiction, when this experiment has failed miserably in the US.”

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What happened in March 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-03-31 US 43(B)log: What Ifs?

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Brussels, 19 March 2007 — The upcoming vote on Tuesday 20 March on the Criminal Sanctions Directive in the EP’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) is premature and non-transparent. Despite three delays, the issue of criminalising all infringements, even those on unexamined rights, remains unsolved.

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What happened in February 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-02-27 US ZDNet: Tech Policy Summit: Patent Office head lays out reform strategy

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Brussels, 26 February 2007 — The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) vote on the “IPR Enforcement Directive” (IPRED2), originally scheduled for tomorrow, was postponed today for the third time. With this action the European Parliament’s rapporteur, Nicola Zingaretti, sends a strong political signal to the Commission to withdraw or rewrite its proposal.

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What happened in January 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-01-31 US Automation: Patent Office validates National Instruments’ LabVIEW Patent

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Brussels, 29 January 2007 — The FFII has sent an open letter to all delegations of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) to oppose with contradictions the “fast track” adoption of the Microsoft’s 6000-page OOXML specification (ECMA-376) before the deadline of February, 5th. Microsoft’s proposal damages the adoption of the existing ISO 26300 standard (OpenDocument) that covers almost the same functionality in just 600 pages.

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What happened in December 2006 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-12-28 US eWeek: Judge Dismisses Patent Lawsuit Against Google

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Brussels, 18 December 2006 — Dutch European Parliament Member Toine Manders has tabled an amendment “to ensure that any purchase of goods infringing an intellectual property right is considered as fencing” to the IPR Enforcement Directive in the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI). With cases like SanDisk’s allegedly patent-infringing MP3 player, the perfume “La Valeur” infringing on “Trésor”-related trademarks, Denda’s phone directory infringing on KPN’s database rights, …

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Brussels, 14 December 2006 — At the Monday’s 11 December late vote on the “IPR Enforcement Directive” (IPRED2, 2005/0127 (COD)), the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee (LIBE) failed to exclude common business conflicts from the directive. And while the committee did remove patents from the scope, it left in infringements on substantially unexamined design rights and unexamined utility model rights.

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Brussels, 12 December 2005. On Wednesday’s Parliamentary vote in Strasbourg, MEPs should vote for amendments 47 and 93, urges the FFII, an information rights group based in Munich, in an open letter to MEPs.

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Brussels, 11 December 2006 — At the pan-European IP Summit in Brussels last week, FFII President Pieter Hintjens warned that growing imbalances were putting the entire patent system at risk. His comments were echoed in Gowers’ report issued by Britain’s Treasury, which called for a new balance between patent holders and the public.

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What happened in November 2006 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-11-30 US NewsForge: Software Freedom Law Center to challenge Blackboard patent

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Brussels, 29 November 2006 — A key report produced by a European Commission task force was written almost entirely by the patent industry and large firms, including SAP’s patent lawyers, US firms, and the European Patent Office, says the FFII. The report titled “IPR for competitiveness and innovation” claims that studies prove that SMEs need patent protection, that SMEs benefit from patents, and that increased software patents in the US have not hampered innovation in the US ICT sector.

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Brussels, 28 November 2006 — In today’s vote on the “IPR Enforcement Directive” (IPRED2, 2005/0127 (COD)), the European Parliament’s Industry Committee (ITRE) limited the directive’s scope to copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting. The rapporteur, David Hammerstein MEP (Greens/EFA), received backing from all groups for his amendments.

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The FFII won the Grand Prix 2006 awarded by the Newropeans Magazine in the category “Citizenship – Citizens Action”. The award highlights through three different aspects the essential link between European construction and democracy:

1.

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Brussels, 14 November 2006 — The FFII today announced the European Patent Conference (EUPACO), a series of events under the banner, “Towards a New European Patent System”. Hintjens said, “the patent system, both globally, and in Europe, is under serious stress.

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What happened in October 2006 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-10-30 EU EgovMonitor: European innovation policy must take small businesses on board

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Brussels, 12 October 2006 – In a new resolution on patent policy adopted with 494 to 109 votes, the European Parliament has stressed ongoing concerns with the patent granting practice of the European Patent Office and a lack of democratic control over the patent system. It is relatively silent about the EPLA, the draft treaty that set the ball rolling.

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What happened in September 2006 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-09-29 EU Corante: SHiFT: Dannie Jost – Patents and software

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Brussels, 28 September 2006. The US-based Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) sent a letter to all MEPs warning them of the dangers of a new system of patent courts proposed under the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA).

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Brussels, 21 September 2006 — Commissioner McCreevy proclaims blissful ignorance about the consequences of the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA). In a series of six non-answers to Members of the European parliament, the Commission reveals that until now it is unable to comment on cost, judicial independence, jurisprudence and treaty-related concerns.

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What happened in August 2006 concerning software patents in Europe and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-08-29 US TheRegister: Patent rulings could destroy open source software

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What happened in July 2006 concerning software patents in Europe and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-07-31 EU Ag-ip-news: FSF Should Stand Firm on Patents Despite Pressure from Large Corporations – Mueller

2006-07-31 EU The Lawyer: IP, IT & telecoms

2006-07-31 EU The Lawyer: Nascent patents

2006-07-31 US Psfk: Friendster’s bid to patent social networking

2006-07-31 US TechRockies: TensorComm Expands Patents

2006-07-30 US Signon Sandiego: The battle over 3G technology is creating…

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Brussels, 10 July 2006. In leaked documents the Commission criticises the European Patent Office (EPO) as a “business culture of its own” that considers EU interferences in patent law “as an attack on the holy writ”.

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Brussels, London, Berlin, Warsaw, Ljubljana, 4th July 2006. In an open letter to the EU Commission, six small business associations have called on Commissioners Verheugen and Reding to modify their plans for a task force, designed “to define the future EU policy in ICT”.

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The Hague, 3 July 2006. Both Chambers of the Dutch Parliament (Staten-Generaal) unanimously concluded last Thursday that the European Commission has no competence to propose a directive to criminalise intellectual property infringements.

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What happened in June 2006 concerning software patents in Europe and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-06-30 US Enterprise OpenSource Mag: Red Hat & JBoss Sued for Patent Infringement

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Brussels, 26 June 2006. The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) Working Group for a new standard for the “syslog” protocol is being confronted by an undisclosed software patent by one of its Working Group members, the Chinese company Huawei.

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Brussels, 24 May 2006. In a reply to a question from Polish MEP and inventor Adam Gierek, the European Commission has confirmed that the European Patent Office’s (EPO) case law is not binding for member states, nor (under the proposed Community Patent regulation) for the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

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Brussels, 12 May 2006. The Commission’s recently relaunched “Enforcement Directive” (IPRED2, 2005/0127 (COD)) proposal aims to criminalise all intentional and commercial IP infringements in order to “combat organised crime” and to “protect national economies and governments”.

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Brussels, 4 April 2006. Following a formal complaint by the FFII to the EU Commission’s President Barroso, and meetings between the FFII and the Commission, the Commission has agreed to extend its deadline from 31 March 2006 to 12 April 2006.

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Brussels, 22 March 2006. The FFII urges European businesses which produce or depend on software for their daily operations to participate in the European Commission’s consultation on the Community Patent.

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In the CNET Networks UK 2005 technology awards, the FFII, together with NoSoftwarePatents.com, was the winner in category “Outstanding contribution to software development”, because of the “tireless work” that resulted in the rejection of the software patents directive.

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Brussels, 7 December 2005. The EU “fast-food factory” is producing hasty and unsafe laws like the Big Brother anti-privacy law, warns the FFII, an international information rights group based in Munich.

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Brussels, 5 July 2005. At a press conference this morning at 9:00, the coordinator of the European People’s Party group in the Legal Affairs Committee explained that he is putting together a majority of MEPs who will vote for a rejection of the Council’s “Common Position” right at the beginning of tomorrow’s vote, even before any amendments are voted on.

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Patent lobby MEPs calling for rejection of the directive
Brussels, 5 July 2005. At a press conference this morning at 9:00, the coordinator of the European People’s Party group in the Legal Affairs Committee explained that he is putting together a majority of MEPs who will vote for a rejection of the Council’s “Common Position” right at the beginning of tomorrow’s vote, even before any amendments are voted on.

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Brussels, 5 July 2005. The Confederation of European Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises CEA-PME, representing more than 500,000 corporate members throughout Europe, has sent a multilingual letter by fax to all members of the European Parliament, which warns that the future of an important SME-driven sector of Europe’s economy is at stake and calls on MEPs to support the 21 Buzek-Rocard-Duff cross-party compromise amendments, or, if these do not achieve the needed majority of 367 votes, reject the directive.

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Brussels, 4 July 2005. 1737 companies from across Europe with a combined turnover of more than 3 billion euros and over 30,000 employees have joined together to call on the European Parliament to protect them from software patents and preserve the IT sector’s current competitive and innovative character.

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Brussels, 23 May 2005. The FFII is proud to announce a new conference on patent policy making, co-sponsored by four prominent members of the European Parliament and by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA).

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Brussels, 20 May 2005. The FFII in conjunction with the European Patent Office (EPO) is pleased to announce it is co-hosting a new conference on EU software patent policy entitled “SMEs, software, copyright and patents” to be held on Tuesday May 24th.

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Madrid, 27 April 2005. In a nation-wide event to take place at noon today, students, teachers, and faculty-members across Spain will participate in anti-software-patent demonstrations to be held at their respective universities.

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Brussels, 25 April 2005. Apparently unable to find enough independent small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to lobby for software patents, EICTA has resorted to sending companies to the European Parliament in which its multinational members hold a strong position.

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One member of the European Parliament Greens group, Helga Trüpel, responded to the blog “Nine Green MEPs voted in favour of upload filters”. She argues that her vote in favour of article 13 copyright reform proposal is not a vote for upload filters.

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The European Parliament has voted in favour of article 13 of the copyright reform proposal. The text of article 13, as adopted by the Parliament, makes internet platforms liable for users’ uploads, but does not mention upload filters.

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About a year ago I requested documents regarding the negotiations on the EU – South Korea trade agreement, provisionally applied since July 2011 and formally ratified in December 2015. I was especially interested in documents regarding the negotiations on intellectual property rights, specifically the documents regarding criminal enforcement.

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The Netherlands has published a new model bilateral investment treaty (BIT). It gives multinationals far reaching rights to challenge government decisions and it places its enforcement mechanism (investor-to-state dispute settlement or ISDS) under U.S. and Dutch influence.

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The European Commission has published the final text of the EU-Singapore trade agreement. 1 Chapter eight contains implicit and explicit cross-border data flow commitments, with insufficient safeguards.

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The European Commission has asked the EU council a mandate to open negotiations on a multilateral investment court. However, the accompanying impact assessment obscures environmental and social impacts.

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EU Court of Justice’s Advocate General (AG) Melchior Wathelet finds that investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) agreements between EU countries are compatible with the EU treaties. (Opinion in the Achmea v. Slovak republic, the ruling of the Court will follow later.) ISDS gives private parties access to the supranational level to challenge government decisions.

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London, 9th March 2017 – Companies across UK have expressed their opposition to an attempt to ratify the Unitary Patent treaty which is neither desirable for British software companies nor compatible with Brexit. They call for an urgent debate in the House of Lords and in the Scottish Parliament.

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The European Commission has launched a consultation on an investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) variant: a multilateral investment court. 1 The consultation is flawed; it is so narrow that social and environmental impacts may not show up in the consultation results.

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The European Commission has launched a consultation on an investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) variant: a multilateral investment court. 1 In an email the commission confirms the consultation has a narrow scope.

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The EU commission has launched a consultation on a multilateral investment court (MIC), an investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) variant. 1 The commission does not expect a multilateral investment court to cause social or environmental impacts.

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Members of the European Parliament want the EU’s Court of Justice to check whether a parallel legal system in the trade agreement with Canada (CETA) is compatible with the EU treaties. The parallel legal system, known as ISDS / ICS, is only accessible to foreign investors.

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Member of the European Parliament Marietje Schaake used harsh words on Wallonia for (temporarily) blocking the signing of the EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA): unbelievable, shameful political opportunism, really incomprehensible. In the press release she also defended the inclusion in CETA of investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS), a parallel legal system for multinational investors.

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The European Commission and Canadian government work on a “Joint Interpretative Declaration” that should convince governments that have doubts about signing the EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA). The Declaration does not change CETA’s text.

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Investment lawyer Pratyush Nath Upreti argues that investors will be able to use investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) to challenge decisions of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). [1] Investors could for instance use a Dutch bilateral investment treaty to challenge UPC decisions.

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ECORYS has published a draft human rights assessment (sustainability impact assessment) on the trade agreement being negotiated between the EU and the United States (TTIP). Today the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) has sent an email to ECORYS noting issues regarding intellectual property rights, investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS / ICS), data protection, and openness.

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This is the fourth in a series of blogs on the EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA) and data protection. In earlier blogs we saw that under the CETA text Canada can give our personal data related to financial services, transfered to Canada, a lower protection than under the standard set by the Court of Justice of the EU in the Safe Harbour ruling.

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In February 2016 the European Commission and Canadian government published the final draft text of the EU – Canada trade agreement (CETA). This final draft includes an investment chapter with investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS).

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In February 2016 the European Commission and Canadian government published the final draft text of the EU – Canada trade agreement (CETA). Before that the Court of Justice of the EU in October 2015 invalidated the Safe Harbour framework that allowed the transfer of European citizens’ data to the United States.

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The European Commission published the text of the draft EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA), which includes an investor-to state dispute settlement (ISDS) section. According to an Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online article Canada succeeded in “changing the language from the EU’s TTIP proposal in a way that sources on both sides of the debate agreed would provide less protection for governments against challenges by investors.”

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The European Commission today published the negotiated text of the EU – Vietnam FTA. The investment and investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) chapter is not conform the European Parliament 8 July 2015 resolution.

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Junge Tüftler is a society that coaches children digital literacy by using a constructionist approach. To extend our work we are happy about the possibility to share the FFII office space so that we will be able to offer more courses and events for kids in future.

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Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament international trade committee, has sent a letter to EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström regarding the EU commission’s investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform proposal. His letter shows that he overlooks many deficiencies in the commission’s proposal, among them perverse incentives.

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Citizen enjoy a right of access to documents enshrined in the EU treaties. However, when they ask about documents from the ongoing trade negotiations (TTIP, TISA,…) access had usually been refused by the institutions.

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On 4 June 2015 the European Liberal Forum (ELF) organised a discussion on TTIP and the creative industries: Can TTIP Protect European Creativity? [1] TTIP is the trade agreement with the US under negotiation.

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Today the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution on the trade agreement with the United States (TTIP). Based on this resolution we could have a discriminating and expansive investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, rigged to the advantage of the United States.

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Last week the European Parliament postponed the vote on a resolution on the EU-US trade agreement (TTIP). The vote was postponed because many social democratic members oppose investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS).

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Wednesday the European Parliament will vote on a resolution on TTIP, the agreement with the US under negotiation. The EU commission wants to add investor-to-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, to this agreement.

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The OpenTechSummit 2015 took place for the first time in Berlin on May 14, 2015 with the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure as a core partner and supporter. With more than 700 attendees – from policy makers, developers, start-ups, to contributors – and over 70 speakers the event was a huge success.

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The OpenTechSummit will take place for the first time in Berlin on May 14, 2015 with the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure as a core partner and supporter. The Free and Open Source technology event brings together policy makers, developers, start-ups, and contributors.

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Spiegel Online quotes an internal document of the German Ministry of Economics on the TTIP negotiations (round 8):
Im Bereich der öffentlichen Beschaffung hat die US-Seite weitere Zugeständnisse mit der Aufnahme von Diskussionen zu Investitionsschutz / ISDS verknüpft. (In the area of public procurement the US side made further concessions conditional on the start of deliberations on investor protection /ISDS).

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Social democratic ministers from six EU countries published reform proposals for the highly controversial investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. ISDS gives foreign investors the right to bypass local courts and use international arbitration to fight out conflicts with states.

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EU Trade Commissioner Malmström addressed a question from MEP Adam Gierek on TTIP effects on transatlantic patentability differences. The Commissioner did not actually answer the question of the Polish social democrat and responded with routine information: “Notwithstanding patent protection granted by US law to computer programs, our current international obligations ensure copyright protection in both parties.”

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A new Open Source Strategy applies a concept of equal treatment:
The Commission will ensure a level playing field to open source software when procuring new software solutions. This means that open source solutions and proprietary solutions will be assessed on an equal basis, being both evaluated on the basis of total cost of ownership, including exit costs.

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The European Commission investigates a permanent international investment court as a replacement of the controversial investor-to-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS). The plan for a court and the road map towards it are fundamentally flawed.

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Today EU commissioner Malmström gave a speech in the European Parliament trade committee on investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS). ISDS gives foreign investors the right to use arbitration against states, instead of using local courts.

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Today the EU declassified a two year old mandate of the member states to the European Commission to negotiate the services agreement TiSA. These mandates are drafted by the European Commission and approved by the member states in the European Council and authorise the European Commission to negotiate with third countries.

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A Vrijschrift letter to the Dutch Parliament highlights the dangers of investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in the trade agreements with Canada (CETA) and Singapore (EUSFTA). On 25 March EU trade ministers will meet (informally) to discuss trade agreements and ISDS.

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The European Commission acknowledges that the unitary patent is not safeguarded against the granting of software patents by endorsing the EPO teaching:
21. Will the new unitary patent regime facilitate the patenting of computer programmes?

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Since 1 January 2015 online traders in the EU, selling items like “laser swords” in an app, have to apply the applicable value-added tax (VAT) rate to their purchases and submit the tax to the applicable tax authority of the responsible European member state. The new rules affect “laser swords”, document templates and SaaS but not traditional ecommerce trade of physical goods.

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We publish a German paper from the DO-FOSS initiative that advocates for free and open source software for the public sector in the city of Dortmund, Germany. Disclaimer: The FFII was not involved in the drafting of the document and is not affiliated with the group.

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The European Commission published a textual proposal for the TTIP talks that includes the H-Word. Previously the European Commission had argued that (legal) harmonisation was not among the objective of the agreement: “Given the efficiency of their respective systems, the intention is not to strive towards harmonisation, but to identify a number of specific issues where divergences will be addressed.”

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and potential areas of conflict with the Lisbon Treaty

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (hereinafter TTIP) is a comprehensive free trade and investment agreement, which is currently being negotiated — behind closed doors — between the European Union and the US. In particular, all TTIP negotiations are swathed in secrecy, since the Commission is imposing the most stringent restrictions on the more important documents.

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The European People’s Party (EPP), the biggest group in the European Parliament, is in favour of investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS). I will discuss their position and conclude it creates three risks.

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In October 2014 the European Commission published the draft text of the EU-Singapore trade agreement (EUSFTA) investment chapter. It contains investment protection rules for foreign investors and the controversial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which gives foreign investors special rights in conflicts with governments.

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Marietje Schaake, the European Parliament’s liberal group’s (ALDE) spokesperson on the trade agreement with the US (TTIP) published a blog on investor-state arbitration (ISDS). I will discuss her arguments below; to avoid cherry picking, I will quote her whole blog (for the links and images see her blog).

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Foundation for a Free information Infrastructure (FFII) submission to the European Ombudsman public consultation in relation to the transparency of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. The submission has a focus on the EU’s human rights obligations.

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The first Meshcon FashionTec Week took place from October 10-15, 2014 in Berlin with the support of the FFII e.V. The event attracted 23 speakers from around the world and gathered hundreds of attendees from the technology and fashion community. The FFII invited software engineers, creative minds and fashion hackers to the MeshCon 14’ in Berlin.

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In 2011 the FFII discovered that some European Parliament decisions regarding the ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) were not recorded in any known document. A hidden class of documents (“coordinators’ minutes”) seemed to exist, but the Parliament denied the existence.

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This Saturday 11 October 2014, in hundreds of European cities, civil society organisations, unions and farmers will organise manifestations against EU trade agreements under negotiation. The manifestations regard the Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada, and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) with many countries.

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OpenDemocracy reports about the back and forth confusion during Commissioner hearings recently:

At 16:01 they [Tagesspiegel] publish an article on their website: Juncker will drop ISDS from TTIP, this is the policy of the incoming Commission. It becomes more an more likely that the controversial enforcement of TTIP and CETA with ISDS instruments would be resolved.

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Berlin, 26 September 2014 – The FFII invites software engineers, creative minds and fashion hackers to the MeshCon 14’ in Berlin. The technology week is organised in cooperation with the TU Berlin, BBW, Wikimedia and the Mozilla Community.

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The US President Export Council discusses its proposed data flow provisions (June 19, 2014) as a means to counter the rush to privacy protection and denounces privacy measures of foreign governments as a trade barrier and digital protectionism. No further arguments are provided to back up these claims and allegations.

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Here is a quote from Harry van Dorenmalen of IBM Europe:
Data flows and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will be high on the agenda at the Summit. TTIP offers a unique opportunity to set the example as a 21st Century trade agreement that supports cross border data flow provisions…

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This submission concludes that investor-to-state dispute settlement lacks conventional institutional safeguards for independence and has characteristics of a rigged system. The appointment of arbitrators is not neutral and gives the US an unfair advantage.

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Investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS), the most controversial element of the proposed trade agreement with the US, has characteristics of a rigged system. ISDS gives the US an unfair advantage, we can not expect EU companies to win ISDS cases against the US.

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On 3 December 2013, the Dutch Parliament requested the government to investigate the potential social and environmental risks and the consequences of investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) and the consequences of ISDS for the Netherlands and the financial risks for the Dutch government. On 17 April 2014 companies and civil society organisations met at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss the ongoing “ISDS – TTIP study”.

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Thanks to the tool Offenesparlament.de you can find what questions are asked by Members of the German Bundestag (MdB) concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to the German government. For instance the Government stipulates that sectoral exclusions are impossible because of WTO principles (Dr. Maria Flachsbarth, Parl.

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(Updated) In the EU – US trade negotiations (TTIP / TAFTA) the US tabled a proposal that would prohibit to require local data storage. If the EU accepts this proposal, the EU would give away an instrument essential to protect privacy.

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Update: Since the publication of this blog the European Commission has published two new versions. These do not change the analysis; the remarks are also valid for the consolidated CETA text and the CETA final text (Chapter 20), the version to be ratified or rejected.

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These days the European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht claims chlorinated chicken was not a valid concern of the TTIP negotiations. EU investment agreements will explicitly state that legitimate government public policy decisions – on issues such as the balance between public and private provision of healthcare or “the European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine” – cannot be over-ridden.

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The Commission announced:
Given the efficiency of their respective systems, the intention is not to strive towards harmonisation, but to identify a number of specific issues where divergences will be addressed. What does “harmonisation” mean within the European Union institutions?

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With other representatives of civil society organisations and business stakeholders, I spent an afternoon at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs talking about the ongoing talks on a proposed EU – US trade agreement (TTIP/TAFTA). Intellectual property (IP)

Of course, the ministry assured us that TTIP will not contain ACTA-like Internet provisions or provisions that will limit access to medicine.

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Faced with massive critique, the European Commission announced a consultation on investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS). ISDS gives multinationals the right to sue states before special tribunals if changes in law may lead to lower profits than expected.

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I wrote a letter to the European Ombudsman to solve a misunderstanding regarding my complaint against the European Parliament (see below or pdf). ACTA is dead in Europe, but there are still issues with disclosure of documents.

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In an interview with Inside U.S. Trade, European Parliament International Trade committee chairman Vital Moreira, talking about the trade negotiations with the United States (TTIP / TAFTA), defended the investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. Under ISDS companies can sue states if new laws threaten to make expected profits lower.

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In an interview with Inside U.S. Trade, European Parliament International Trade committee Chairman Vital Moreira said, regarding the trade negotiations with the United States (TTIP / TAFTA), that he is not now pressing the European Commission to provide parliament members with access to U.S. negotiating proposals, but that could change if the U.S. authorizes the commission to share these proposals with member states. According to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union article 218 (10), the European Parliament shall be immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure.

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During a stakeholders meeting on the TTIP / TAFTA trade agreement, EU and US negotiators showed determination to transfer sovereignty to companies. On Friday 15 November, the last day of the second TTIP negotiating round, the EU commission organised a stakeholders meeting.

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A few weeks ago I filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against the European Parliament over the secrecy of legal advice regarding ACTA. The Ombudsman replied that she didn’t want to investigate the complaint as I already got access to the documents (unofficially released versions).

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Brussels, 24 September 2013 — Ten years after the historical vote of the European Parliament to ban software patents, the EPO, the patent community and large companies continue to push for their validation through the Unitary Patent Court. Benjamin Henrion, president of the FFII, says: “Freedom of programming has won that day, but it did not take long for the enemies of freedom to fight back.

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The European Parliament decided to keep the opinions of its legal service on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) secret. I just filed a complaint with the ombudsman against the parliament over this.

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This summer there will a another international camping festival for hackers and makers, and those with an inquisitive mind, OHM 2013. I will give a short talk about investor-to-state dispute settlement.

Lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory today appealed to the European Court of Justice a ruling from the EU’s General Court over information related to the EU-India free trade talks, which the European Commission shared with corporate lobby groups but later withheld from the public.” The FFII criticised the earlier ruling in its comment on the EU – US trade agreement, “Openness and the right to participate”.

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Monday the EU and US will start negotiations on a trade agreement. Today the FFII sent a comment to the EU Commission and the EU Parliament rapporteurs on this agreement, with a focus on openness and the right to participate.

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Brussels, 14 June 2013 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) condemns the inclusion of investor-to-state dispute settlement in the mandate for trade talks with the United States. Investor-to-state dispute settlement gives multinationals the possibility to sue states for special tribunals if changes in law may lead to lower profits than expected.

In a ruling delivered today following a lawsuit by lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg concludes that the European Commission did not violate EU rules when withholding information about the EU-India free trade talks from the public, even though it had already shared the information with corporate lobby groups. Corporate Europe Observatory warns that this decision risks deepening the secrecy around EU trade negotiations and legitimises the Commission’s practice of granting corporate lobby groups privileged access to its policy-making, at the expense of the wider public interest.”

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Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant today opens with an article on investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), stating that ISDS can have far-reaching effects on EU environmental laws. De Volkskrant writes it has a leaked draft of the EU – Canada trade agreement.

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The EU draft mandate for trade negotiations with the United States contains serious flaws and should rejected, according to the Vrijschrift Foundation. Vrijschrift writes this in a letter to the Chairman of the Dutch House Committee for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Mr de Roon.

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(Updated) The European Parliament adopted a resolution on EU trade and investment negotiations with the United States of America. All amendments to the resolution were rejected, and with this all amendments were rejected that asked for real openness, or asked for leaving investor to state dispute settlement out, or would have made an improvement on the paragraph on intellectual property rights.

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If countries do not want to defend themselves in investor to state dispute settlement (ISDR) cases, they better think twice before signing them, Mr H. Lee-Makiyama said yesterday. In that case, they better also think twice before giving the Commission a mandate to negotiate a trade agreement with the US, as they may not have a veto on the outcome.

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Mr Daniel Caspary, European People’s Party (EPP) coordinator International Trade Committee, said this morning that looking at draft negotiation texts does not make any sense. This morning the EPP group in the European Parliament organised a breakfast debate on the proposed trade agreement with the US (TTIP / TAFTA).

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In this blog post I will argue that investor – state dispute settlement (ISDS) is not compatible with the EU Treaties. Summary: EU laws have to be compatible with the EU Treaties (including human rights).

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After the negotiations, the EU member states may not have a veto on the proposed trade agreement with the US (TTIP / TAFTA). I wrote earlier about some issues with the EU draft mandate for the EU – US trade agreement.

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Today the FFII sent a letter to the European Parliament committee on International Trade. Thursday 25 April 2013 the committee will vote on 198 amendments to a draft resolution on the EU – US trade agreement (TTIP / TAFTA)

Text as pdf, or below:

22 April 2013

Dear Members of the International Trade committee,

We are writing to express our concerns with the proposed trade agreement with the US (TTIP).

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25 April at 10 am, the European Parliament International Trade committee will vote on a draft resolution on the proposed EU – US trade agreement (TAFTA / TTIP). There are 198 amendments, on many subjects, like intellectual property out (especially from amendment 114), others aim at stronger IP, investor – state dispute resolution out (amendments 163, 164), more transparency.

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Berlin, 18 April 2013 — A cross-partisan Deutsche Bundestag resolution on software patenting received its plenary first reading. The resolution asks for changes to the controversial granting of software patents by patent institutions.

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Update: Text of trade agreement with Singapore will be published before the summer

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(FFII press release) Text also below:

Brussels, 12 April 2013 — The EU Commission decided to keep the trade agreement with Singapore secret until it enters into force. With this decision the Commission betrays European citizens and democracy, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII).

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Inside U.S. Trade obtained the draft EU mandate for the EU – US trade agreement (TTIP / TAFTA) (pdf), this is the proposal the Commission sent to the Council for a mandate to start the negotiations. I note 6 issues here.

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Berlin, 27 March 2013 — The German newspaper taz.die tageszeitung (TAZ) receives this year’s Document Freedom Day award. With this award, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) honour organisations that make exemplary use of Open Standards.

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Seven members of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA) asked the Commission a question on the proposed EU-US trade agreement. The EU is obliged to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

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The General Court of the European Court of Justice gave a judgment in Case T‑301/10, In ‘t Veld against European Commission about transparency of ACTA documents, 19 March 2013. The Court upholds the secrecy in general, and only finds regarding a few documents that the secrecy was wrong.

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Brussels, 18 March 2013 — More than 35 European and United States civil society organisations insist that a proposed trade agreement between the EU and the US exclude any provisions related to patents, copyright, trademarks, or other forms of so-called “intellectual property”. Such provisions could impede citizens’ rights to health, culture, and free expression and otherwise affect their daily lives.

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Yesterday the European Parliament voted on a non-binding report on eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU. EDRi wrote the draft resolution supported “a ban on ‘all forms of pornography’ (paragraph 17), with online policing being done by private companies (paragraph 14)”.

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(-> Version Française)
Brussels, 20 February 2013 – After almost 40 years of deliberations the Irish Presidency managed to get most European member states to formally sign an agreement on a Unitary Patent Court without European substantive patent law. The Court would be seated in three member states.

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Statement by more than 70 organizations: “We urge the EU and Canadian governments to follow the lead of the Australian government by stopping the practice of including investor-state dispute settlement in their trade and investment agreements, and to open the door to a broad re-writing of trade and investment policy to balance out corporate interests against the greater public interest.”

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Today EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht travels to Washington to discuss the possibilities to start negotiations on an EU – US trade agreement. Some companies already dream of setting a gold standard in areas such as intellectual property rights (IPR) protection.

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Tomorrow EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht will travel to Washington to discuss the possibilities to start negotiations on an EU – US trade agreement. The industry already dreams of setting a gold standard in areas such as intellectual property protection – just like they tried with ACTA.

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Tuesday EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht will travel to Washington to discuss the possibilities to start negotiations on an EU – US trade agreement. The industry already dreams of setting a gold standard in areas such as intellectual property protection.

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Brussels, 31 January 2013 — A draft trade agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA) threatens the Internet, health and democracy, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). The agreement contains an investor-state arbitration clause, which gives multinational companies the right to directly sue states in international tribunals.

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[ Francais ] — [ Deutsch ]
Munich, 15 January 2013 – The king of trivial software and business methods patents, Amazon’s “one-click gift order”, is still not dead in Europe. After 15 years of existence, the European Patent Office (EPO) today revoked it on precarious grounds which warrant another appeal.

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Much has been written about the tragic death of Aaron Swartz. As I didn’t know him personally, I would like to limit myself to three words: rest in peace (and my deepest sympathy for his family, loved ones and friends).

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The European Commission has withdrawn its referral of ACTA to the European Court of Justice. This spring, the commission had asked the court: “Is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) compatible with the European Treaties, in particular with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union?”

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Member of the European Parliament Eva Lichtenberger has sent an open letter to her colleagues about the European Patent Package. She notes the patent package is set to be debated and voted in first reading in the December despite the fact that the European Council amended the first reading agreement reached with the Legal Affairs Committee, and no subsequent negotiations have being held to discuss this.

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Today the FFII sent an open letter to the President of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Mr Vassilios Skouris. In the letter the FFII asks the Court to reconsider the Court’s rules on amicus curiae briefs in opinion procedures and accept amicus curiae briefs in the ACTA referral.

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Brussels, 21 November 2012 — This monday, the Cypriot Presidency stated in parliament that they are “aware of concerns that the legislator can be deprived of their legislative competence”. In fact the new patent compromise is similar to the “a death certificate in patent law” for the European Parliament, says Benjamin Henrion, president of the FFII.

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On 13 November 2012 the FFII sent an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to the Court of Justice of the European Union. A few hours later the registry of the court informed the FFII that only the Member States, the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission may participate in the Opinion procedure and submit written statements.

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Today the FFII sent an amicus curiae brief about ACTA to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The FFII concludes that ACTA is not compatible with international human rights instruments, the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, or the European Treaties.

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This is my submission to the “Call for a progressive agenda on creation and innovation”, launched by the Greens / EFA in the European Parliament. It is partly inspired by Peter K. Yu, Intellectual Property and Human Rights in the Nonmultilateral Era.

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The pharmaceutical industry abuses patents to ask exorbitant prices, says Dr. Huub Schellekens, professor at Utrecht University, in an interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (11 August, paywall). In the Netherlands, one of the richest countries in the world, the “College van Zorgverzekeringen”, the government organization responsible for reimbursing medical costs, started a discussion on whether it is still possible to reimburse the high costs for treating the Fabry and Pompe diseases.

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On February 1, 2012, I filed a maladministration complaint against the European Parliament for systematically lying about the existence of documents. The complaint attracted attention from Members of the Parliament.

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Brussels, 23 July 2012 — The European Commission blocks TOR users’ access to its web site. TOR is an internet anonymisation technology and became widely popular for its facilitating role in the Arab spring movement.

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Today, the European Parliament rejected the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in a 478 to 39 vote with 165 abstentions. Before the vote the European People’s Party requested a vote on postponement of the vote.

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The European Parliament plenary session will discuss ACTA on the 3rd of July, followed by a plenary vote the next day. The biggest group in Parliament, the EPP, is still in favour of ACTA, and most committee votes were close.

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According to sources in the Parliament, Trade Commissioner De Gucht invited himself to the Parliament’s International Trade committee (INTA). He will address the committee just before the vote on ACTA.

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On 21 June, at 10 am, the European Parliament International Trade committee will vote on David Martin’s draft opinion on ACTA. The draft opinion recommends to Parliament to reject ACTA (“Declines to consent to conclusion of the agreement”).

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Tomorrow, Saturday 9 June, there will be more than 120 demonstrations against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Most of them take place in Europe, but there will also be demonstrations in Sendai (Japan), Montreal (QC, Canada), Kansas and New York (US).

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This week three European Parliament committees will vote on ACTA: Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Legal Affairs (JURI), and Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). Today the FFII sent letters to the three committees that will vote this week.

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On April 30th, the United States published its 2012 Special 301 Report (pdf). Among other things, the report targets poor countries for not spending enough on the enforcement of intellectual property rights – including EU member states Romania and Greece.

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The ACTA draft opinion of Dimitrios DROUTSAS was presented to the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. You could view a video recording of the meeting on the European Parliament website (start 11.15).

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Strasbourg, 27 april 2012 — British Telecom patent lawyer Simon Roberts warned that current plans for an EU patent court are a fuel for patent trolls. The current plans for an EU patent court will allow countries such as Germany to keep their bifucarted court system, which acts like a magnet for companies that want to enforce patents.

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The European Parliament Legal Affairs committee will consider its rapporteur’s draft opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on Wednesday 25 April 2012, at 16.50. The next day, 26 April 2012, at 10.00, the committee will vote on the adoption of the draft opinion (Agenda points 8 and 31).

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The European Digital Rights initiative published Marielle Gallo MEP’s (EPP, France) draft European Parliament Legal Affairs committee opinion on ACTA yesterday. She proposes the committee to support ACTA.

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Today the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats, the European Parliament’s second biggest group, held a meeting on ACTA. At the end of the meeting David Martin, the Parliament’s rapporteur on ACTA said his job as rapporteur is to balance hopes and fears and to make his recommendation on voting for or against ACTA.

According to the announcement there will be speakers from Amnesty International, ACCESS, Oxfam, Article19, Health Action International, Reporters Without Borders, Consumer Rights groups, Knowledge Ecology Online, an SME organization, International Federation of Library Associations, Academics and Researchers, High level advisors and the Council of Europe.

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The European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) rapporteur on ACTA Amelia Andersdotter published the draft ITRE opinion. In the draft, the committee calls on the Committee on International Trade, as the committee responsible, to propose that Parliament withholds its consent to ACTA.

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Brussels, 1st April 2012 — The Council of European ministers agreed today on the location of the future European Patent Court, which is going to be located in Sealand, 10 kilometers off the English coast. The European patent community has finally achieved independence from elected parliaments.

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Karlsruhe, 28 March 2012 — 1&1, GMX and WEB.DE receive the German Document Freedom Award for the use of Open Standards. The prize is awarded by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure e.V. (FFII).

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Rainer Wieland, Vice President of the European Parliament, has decided not to release the legal service’s opinion on ACTA (letter 14 March 2012, pdf). With this decision he confirms the decision taken earlier by the Secretary General, the FFII then received a blacked out version (picture above).

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The FFII just sent a letter to the ACTA rapporteur for the European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee. The Committee will exchange views on ACTA in its meeting on Monday 26 March 2012, 15.00 — 18.30.

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The European Commission decided to ask the EU Court of Justice an opinion on ACTA. Commissioner Karel De Gucht stated: “We are planning to ask Europe’s highest court to assess whether ACTA is incompatible – in any way – with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and information or data protection and the right to property in case of intellectual property.”

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As a treatment provider for LDC, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is deeply concerned about the impact of ACTA as part of a larger enforcement agenda on the production and supply of affordable, legitimate medicines. They urge contracting States not to sign or ratify ACTA unless all concerns related to access to medicines are fully addressed.

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The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is adopted under the so called “Global Europe” strategy of the European Commission. In its resolution of 22 May 2007 on Global Europe – external aspects of competitiveness the European Parliament demanded with regard to intellectual property rights:

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Yesterday, the Dutch Parliament adopted a resolution asking the minister not to sign ACTA as long as it is not conclusively established that ACTA does not conflict with fundamental rights. The resolution mentions the possibility to ask the Court of Justice an opinion on ACTA.

Related

According to the not corrected minutes, the Dutch Parliament adopted this motion:

The Chamber,

heard the discussion,

whereas the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is or will be submitted for adoption to the European Parliament and national parliaments of the Member States of the European Union;

whereas five Member States of the European Union, including the Netherlands, did not sign the treaty;

whereas according to Article 218, paragraph 11 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, each Member State may obtain the opinion of the Court of Justice as to whether an agreement envisaged is compatible with the Treaties;

whereas several scientific studies conclude that ACTA is possibly at odds with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights;

whereas the possible effects of this Treaty for the in the Dutch Constitution recognized freedoms such as the freedom of expression and information and the right to privacy have not been explored,

asks the Government not to sign the ACTA treaty as long as it is not conclusively established that the treaty does not conflict with fundamental rights,

and proceeds to the order of the day. SP, PvdD, PvdA, GroenLinks, D66, ChristenUnie and PVV voted for the resolution, it was adopted.

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The Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament officially envoked 36 of the Rules of Procedure concerning ACTA. In a letter to the Parliament President Jerzy Buzek from October 2011 group leaders Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit officially envoked RoP 36(2).

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Today there will be over 200 demonstrations against ACTA in Europe. I made a one page handout that lists studies and opinions on ACTA: http://people.ffii.org/~ante/acta/Studies-on-ACTA.pdf

Below a version with more quotes:

Opinion of European Academics on ACTA: “Contrary to the European Commission’s repeated statements and the European Parliament’s resolution of 24 November 2010, certain ACTA provisions are not entirely compatible with EU law and will directly or indirectly require additional action on the EU level.”

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Brussels, 10 February 2012 — The Consumer Committee (IMCO) within the European Parliament is considering an overhaul of the current standardisation system in Europe. The FFII presents a paper on the proposed recognition of ICT specifications from consortia.

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Members of the European Parliament could submit as many written parliament questions to the Council and the Commission as they like and force these institutions to make official statements. If you have a technical question about specific ACTA provisions or procedural oddities feel free to suggest your Member of Parliament to table them.

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We discovered a smoking gun on the criminal sanctions aspect of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). A declassified document reveals that the Commission made proposals and fundamentally steered the negotiations on criminal sanctions in ACTA for which no corresponding EU harmonisation exists.

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I just filed a maladministration complaint with the Ombudsman against the European Parliament for systematically lying about the existence of documents:

The European Parliament cultivates secrecy. On 21 June 2011, the coordinators of the International Trade committee (INTA) decided to ask the Parliament’s legal service an opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

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Brussels, 26 January 2012 — Today the European Union and member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Tokyo, Japan. Signing is a first step to enable later ratification of the controversial agreement.

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As we reported earlier, tomorrow, Tuesday 24 January 2012, around 16.30 Paris time, the European Parliament Committee on Development will hold an exchange of views on ACTA. Today, the FFII sent the committee a letter.

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Today the FFII sent a letter to the European Parliament about the EP legal service’s opinion on ACTA. (pfd version)
Brussels, 23 January 2012 — The European Parliament’s legal service consistently overlooks known issues with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII).

Related

We welcome the decision to release the European Parliament legal service’s opinion on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). We have compared the legal service’s opinion with multiple academic opinions on ACTA and some civil society analyses.

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At a Dutch House of Representatives’ committee meeting, 13 December 2011, minister of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, Maxime Verhagen, said the refusal to provide access to the European Parliament’s legal service’s opinion on ACTA is “gek”: odd/crazy/silly. The European Parliament’s International Trade Committee asked the legal service for an opinion on ACTA.

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The JURI Report, the newsletter of the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee, is a very positive about ACTA. “Thus, it will provide benefits for EU exporting right holders operating in the global market who currently suffer systematic and widespread infringements of their copyrights, trademarks, patents, designs and geographical indications abroad.”

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As things stand now, the European Parliament committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety will not formulate an opinion on ACTA. Despite all the analysis work done on the effects ACTA will have on access to medicine, and despite health groups informed the Parliament, no Member of Parliament has asked the committee to formulate one.

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On the same day that the European Parliament had its first secret meeting on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), the Dutch parliament decided it will not take ACTA into consideration unless all ACTA negotiation texts are published. A few weeks ago, the Dutch House of Representatives’ committee of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation requested the ACTA negotiation texts (the earlier versions of ACTA).

Please find attached and below a letter from civil society — including digital rights, access to medicines, free software and human rights organisations — regarding the INTA meeting on 23 November, at which an unpublished Opinion of the European Parliament Legal Service on ACTA will be discussed in-camera. I am happy to discuss this particular meeting and the ACTA process more generally, so please do not hesitate to contact me directly at [TELEPHONE NUMBER] or by email at [EMAIL ADDRESS].

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On 9 November we sent the Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade (INTA), Mr Moreira, an open letter in which we protested against an INTA meeting behind closed doors on ACTA. On 10 November Mr Moreira replied.

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Brussels, 9 November 2011 — On 23 November the European Parliament Committee on International Trade will discuss ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) behind closed doors. In a letter to the Chairman of the committee, Mr Moreira, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure objects to the meeting being held behind closed doors.

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The European Parliament’s register released the International Trade (INTA) committee’s coordinators’ minutes on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Prior to the release, the Parliament’s services denied the existence of these minutes four times.

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When the European Parliament adopted its position on the proposed EU draft directive on criminal sanctions they also included the following safeguards, a fair use provision. Member States shall ensure that the fair use of a protected work, including such use by reproduction in copies or audio or by any other means, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research, does not constitute a criminal offence.

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Brussels, 14 October 2011 — In an open letter to the members of the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee, the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) urges them to formulate an opinion on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). ACTA is a multilateral agreement which proposes international standards for enforcement of intellectual property rights.

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EU level Criminal law is a very delicate issue. In the European Parliament a new document from the Commission would be examined: “Towards an EU Criminal Policy: Ensuring the effective implementation of EU policies through criminal law”.

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On Saturday, October 1, 2011, parties that have completed relevant domestic processes will sign ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). For background information on who will sign, see: Who is Signing ACTA: State of Play Cont’d (EU will not sign)

FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) statement:

The world faces major challenges: access to medicine, diffusion of green technology needed to fight climate change, and a balanced Internet governance.

Related

A few years ago, an amendment making sure that parallel importation was not criminalised in the EU disappeared after it was adopted in the European Parliament. This summer, the Chairman of the International Trade committee (INTA), Mr Vital Moreira, rewrote a question the INTA committee asked the Parliament’s Legal Services regarding ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).

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Letter to the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee
2 September 2011

Dear Members of the Legal Affairs Committee,

A new study on ACTA, commissioned by the Greens/EFA, concludes that ACTA is incompatible with fundamental European human rights instruments and -standards. [1] We believe the Parliament should ask the European Court of Justice an opinion on this delicate issue.

Related

The European Parliament Register released three documents on the European Parliament INTA Committee commissioned study on ACTA. The “Terms of Reference” document (pdf), dated 15 November 2010, is the most interesting.

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A few years after the ratification of the 1994 WTO TRIPS agreement (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), the AIDS epidemic took millions of lives in Africa. Protected by TRIPS, pharmaceutical companies sold AIDS medicine in Africa for prices higher than in the US.

Related

The European Parliament Committee on International Trade requested the Parliament’s Legal Service an opinion on ACTA (pdf). Compared with the request US Senator Wyden made, and seen the European academics Opinion on ACTA, the questions are very narrow.

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This afternoon the FFII has requested minutes of European Parliament Committee meetings on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). ACTA was concluded in December 2010 after three years of confidential negotiations.

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Sources say that the European Parliament’s Trade Committee (INTA) will tomorrow consider asking the Parliament’s Legal service to answer questions about ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Here are some questions the FFII would like to suggest.

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The recent European Commission IPR strategy paper also mentions ACTA. It is quite odd how they highlight an unsubstantiated claim that the ACTA text was in line with the acquis despite evidence of the contrary.

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The EU Commission published a new version of the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) text (pdf). A Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan announcement mentions an April 15 round of negotiations: “The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was opened for signature on May 1, following its adoption by participants in its negotiations on April 15.”

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Brussels, 24 May 2011 — The European Parliament should decisively resolve uncertainties regarding ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), according to an open letter to the Members of the European Parliament by the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure). The FFII urges the Parliament to seek an opinion of the European Court of Justice on the compatibility of ACTA with the EU Treaties, and to commission independent assessments of the effects ACTA will have on access to medicine, diffusion of green technologies needed to fight climate change, fundamental rights, innovation, small and medium sized companies and a fair balance of interests.

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Some US rightsholder associations and industry players do not want the European Parliament to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) about the inconsistencies of the ACTA treaty with the European treaties. The letter is directed to Polish MEP Jerzy Buzek who is the President of our European Parliament and a member of the European Peoples Party (EPP) group.

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In January 2011, prominent European academics issued an “Opinion of European Academics on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA). The academics invite the European institutions, in particular the European Parliament, and the national legislators and governments to withhold consent of ACTA, “…as long as significant deviations from the EU acquis or serious concerns on fundamental rights, data protection, and a fair balance of interests are not properly addressed”.

Related

On the 30th of March, 2011, the FFII and FSFE awarded tagesschau.de the DFD Award for its use of Open Standards in broadcasting content. Berlin and Hamburg Fellows joined the event to celebrate the important role of tagesschau.de in spreading Document Freedom, eat a piece of pie, and have a chat about Freedom and Open Source Software and Open Document formats.

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Berlin, March 31st 2011 — The FFII answered a consultation call from the European Commission General Directorate Internal Market on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. For the EU to help startup companies, the FFII advises to reduce market entrance risks for innovative companies.

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FFII response to the Consultation on the Commission Report on the enforcement of intellectual property rights

(Also available as pdf)

March 2011

Summary

We would like to thank the European Commission for this opportunity to provide feedback on the Report. To stimulate startup companies, the EU legal situation should minimize market entrance risks for innovators.

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Brussels, March 21st 2011 — The European Parliament wants to make software producers liable for defects. Ahead of the vote on the Consumer Rights Directive on Thursday 24 March, a political agreement amongst the groups in the European Parliament would put software and webservices providers liable for damages under the goal of providing consumer protection.

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Brussels, 11 March 2011 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) supports asking the European Court of Justice an opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). On Monday 21 March 2011 the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee may vote on a proposal for such a request.

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On Monday 21 March 2011, the Legal Affairs Committee may vote on a proposal to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) an opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The FFII strongly supports asking the ECJ an opinion.

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A Whitehouse Intellectual Property annual report Feb 2011 unsurprisingly mentions ACTA
In the Strategy, we committed to promote enforcement of U.S. intellectual property rights through trade policy. On November 15, USTR concluded negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the text of the agreement was finalized on December 3.

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Brussels, 7 February 2011 — A study commissioned by the European Commission advocates the abolition of the national prosecutor’s discretion whether to prosecute and how to charge the defendant. It also argues in favor of a European criminal court and for the criminalisation of patent infringements.

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Already on 24 or 25 November 2010, the Commission and Council Presidency initialled ACTA. This became clear at the Ad hoc meeting – Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a DG Trade meeting to inform and consult civil society about ACTA.

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Here it is, the missing answer to Dutch MEP M. Schaake, which as the document shows was indeed published far too late although referenced in earlier statements to other parties. The Commission arrogant as ever simply disputes the substance.

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The resolution on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) adopted by the European Parliament on November 24th 2010, contains fundamental flaws. The resolution expresses a belief that ACTA can not change present EU laws.

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“Contrary to the European Commission’s repeated statements and the European Parliament’s resolution of 24 November 2010, certain ACTA provisions are not entirely compatible with EU law and will directly or indirectly require additional action on the EU level. The following is a non-exhaustive list of illustrations that indicate the general tendency of ACTA: (…/…)

Taking above into account,

the Signatories of the Opinion invite the European institutions, in particular the European Parliament, and the national legislators and governments,

to carefully consider the above mentioned points and, as long as significant deviations from the EU acquis or serious concerns on fundamental rights, data protection, and a fair balance of interests are not properly addressed, to withhold consent.”

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Member of Parliament Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens) wants to ask the “legal service of the Parliament if the final Version of ACTA and its foreseen legislative procedure is in line with the Treaties of the European Union and which legal possibilities there are for the European Parliament to challenge this in front of the European Court of Justice”. It seems Chairman Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP) is rather hesitant to do this.

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Brussels, 19 January 2011 — The European Union advances on a super-fast track on the “enhanced cooperation” for unitary patent protection among a coalition of the willing after an envisaged Community Patent has once again failed to reach consensus in the Council, attributed to the linguistic divide. The fast move puts aside democratic scrutiny, questions on legality and European unity.

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ACTA Parliament question E-8847 from MEP Marietje Schaakes is still not answered, even if Commission refers to it. E-8294 De Gucht answer to MEP Keller, excerpt:

As the Commission has explained in its detailed response to Question E-8847/10 the Commission has carefully ensured, at every step of the negotiations, respect for Article 15 TFEU in particular by providing regular information to civil society and access to documents on the basis of the relevant legislation.

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The European Commission quickly mentions ACTA in the Christmas review paper on the EU enforcement directive, the 2004 directive which roughly correspondonds to the civil enforcement chapter of ACTA:

Infringements of intellectual property rights taking place outside of the EU also constitute a major source of concern. The Commission is addressing them in different ways, for instance by including ambitious chapters on intellectual property rights in bilateral trade agreements and through participation in international initiatives, such as the on-going negotiation of the ACTA agreement.

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Brussels, 5 January 2011 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) requests proof that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement’s criminal measures are essential. The EU can only harmonise criminal measures if approximation of criminal laws and regulations of its Member States proves essential to ensure the effective implementation of a Union policy.

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The New York Times writes about China’s policy to promote issuing more patents. “In a recent interview, David J. Kappos, director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, pointed to the Chinese targets for 2015 and called them ‘mind-blowing numbers.’

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According to European Parliament sources, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has already been initialed. That would be amazing: normally the initialling of a trade agreement is a PR moment.

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Transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was widely criticized. This month leaked US diplomatic cables demonstrated that the EU Council rotating presidencies were highly aware of the lack of transparency and due process.

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P-8950/10EN Answer given by De Gucht on behalf of the Commission (29.11.2010)
The relevant provisions of ACTA were negotiated by the rotating EU Presidency on behalf of the EU Member States. Therefore, the Presidency is best placed to respond to this question.

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Question for written answer to the Commission, Françoise Castex (S&D): ACTA
Article 1.2 of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) states the following: ‘Each Party shall be free to determine the appropriate method of implementing the provisions of this Agreement within its own legal system and practice.’

At recent meetings in Washington the US Trade Representative has told other US agencies, NGOs and legislators that ACTA is not binding and that its Article 1.2 allows for complete flexibility in respect of any US legal provision that might contradict ACTA. Indeed, Articles 2.2 and 2.X of ACTA, which deal with damages and injunctions respectively, are at odds with the ‘US Affordable Care Act’, which places clear limits on remedies for infringements of patents on medicines.

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For the past past months Commissioner Karel De Gucht cheated the Members of the European Parliament about the lack of competence of the European Union to negotiate ACTA criminal measures, and overplayed the known fact in Plenary that there is no related Acquis existing. Many Members of Parliament trust De Gucht’s promises made that ACTA fully complies with the Acquis.

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Brussels, 16 December 2010 – The European Commission adopted a communication “Towards interoperability for European public services”, introducing the second incarnation of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and the European Interoperability Strategy (EIS) [1]. This week the Commission also published fresh Horizontal Guidelines [2] which bloc-exempt patent cartels from competition enforcement.

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In a Guardian interview this week Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stressed the importance of their disclosure of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Agreement (ACTA). European observers do not have to rely on leaks because public transparency is a right of citizens under the Lisbon treaty.

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Europe’s e-communications providers call on the European Commission to reflect EP demand for ACTA not to modify the EU acquis – Europe’s leading e-communications service providers welcome the efforts of both the
European Parliament and the Commission to address concerns regarding the potentially negative impact of
the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on the EU citizens’ rights and on the existing balance between
IPR enforcement and user’s privacy. Press release of CableEurope, ETNO, EuroISPA,GSMA

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The views expressed on the negotiations being conducted by the Commission regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) often stress the high degree of secrecy surrounding the talks. Bearing in mind the provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requiring the European Parliament to be kept informed of any discussions conducted by the Commission in the context of its powers under Title V of that Treaty, and in the light of the written questions previously tabled: 1.

In the Civil Enforcement section of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), paragraph 1 of Article 2.X: Injunctions allows judicial authorities to issue an order (injunction) against a party, or a third party, to ‘prevent infringing goods from entering into the channels of commerce’. This injunction power is considerably different from that existing under the EU acquis (Article 9 of the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (Directive 2004/48/EC)), which permits injunctions ‘to prevent any imminent infringement’.

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Berlin, Nov 18th 2010 — India has just adopted an open standards preference policy. In contrast, the directorates for Internal Market and Trade recently hindered an adoption of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) 2.0 during the European Commission’s inter-service consultations.

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Brussels, 11 November 2010 — The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) criminalises ordinary companies and individuals, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). In an open letter to the European Parliament, the FFII urges the Parliament to obtain the opinion of the Court of Justice as to whether ACTA is compatible with the EU Treaties.

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Question for written answer P-9459/2010 to the Commission
Rule 117 Emine Bozkurt (S&D)

Subject: ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)
The Commission submitted the final text on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) on 6 October. Regarding the text of the agreement and the finalising of the details, can the Commission answer the following questions:

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Today adopted: European Parliament resolution of 11 November 2010 on the forthcoming EU-US Summit and the Transatlantic Economic Council

42. Emphasises the importance of close transatlantic cooperation on the digital agenda, such as the digital market, internet freedom in the world, net neutrality, the right of privacy, common standards, transparency and the rule of law in relation to ACTA;

43.

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Question for written answer E-8847/2010 to the Commission Rule 117
Marietje Schaake (ALDE)
Subject: ACTA – a law enforcement treaty? There is public concern worldwide about the lack of formal transparency
in the ACTA negotiation process, such as illustrated in the article
‘ACTA Guide, Part Three: Transparency and ACTA Secrecy’, by Professor
Michael Geist (see http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4737/125/).

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Brussels, 25 October 2010 — The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not in line with present EU laws, according to a Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) analysis. Previously, the European Commission has often stated that ACTA would remain fully in line with existing EU legislation.

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Article 83
(ex Article 31 TEU)
1. The European Parliament and the Council may, by means of directives adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, establish minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in the areas of particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension resulting from the nature or impact of such offences or from a special need to combat them on a common basis.

In the WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council), the enforcement of intellectual property rights is a topic of formal discussion including, but not limited to, discussion of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The WTO is also the forum in which India and Brazil are pursuing consultations with the EU over seizures of in-transit generic drugs on grounds of alleged patent infringement.

Many people feel that provisions contained in the Anti‑Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) make telecom operators liable for copyright infringements committed by customers using their networks. In the Commission’s view, does this mean that, in practice, operators will be required to remove Internet access from customers whom they suspect of copyright infringement – without proper judicial review of such actions – in order not to incur penalties?

In its resolution of 10 March 2010, Parliament:
— was ‘deeply concerned that no legal base was established before the start of the ACTA negotiations and that parliamentary approval for the negotiating mandate was not sought’;
— instructed the Commission to conduct impact assessments ‘prior to any EU agreement on a consolidated ACTA treaty text’. A Commission trade spokesperson informed MEPs that the negotiators in Tokyo had ‘produced a consolidated and largely finalised text’ and that the Government of Japan had ‘hosted informal meetings’ with business leaders(1);

The Commission has silently withdrawn the IPRED2 proposal for a directive on criminal sanctions (2005/0127/COD)(2).

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Karel De Gucht, Member of the European Commission (20 Oct 2010). Mr President, honourable Members, you asked me to come to the plenary to explain where we are in the negotiations on ACTA – the international Anti‑Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

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Karel De Gucht, Member of the Commission (20 Oct 2010)
Mr President, first of all there have been several interventions claiming that the implementation of ACTA would lead to limiting civil liberties, and several pointed out the control of laptops, or of air passengers at borders for example. The joint declaration of 16 April issued by all the ACTA parties is quite clear.

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The MEPs from the Green Group in the European Parliament ask crucial technical questions about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement as “priority questions”. These questions address the tip of an iceberg concerning technical issues with the ACTA, there is much more that can be raised.

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Brussels, 6 October 2010 — The negotiating parties published the consolidated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) text. The following statement can be attributed to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII):
“The EU still wants punitive measures against patent infringements in ACTA.

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Brussels, 5 October 2010 — In a radio interview held last Thursday, Mr Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgian Minister of the Economy, tried to explain that the current situation concerning software patents in Europe was fine, and that the current plans are not intended to “change the patent system to make software programming more difficult”. The FFII says this is wrong, considering the thousands of software patents already granted by the European Patent Office (EPO).

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Knowledge Ecology International has posted the latest leaked version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) text, the Washington DC August 2010 text. The FFII published the following statement:

We are disappointed the EU still wants punitive measures against patent infringements in ACTA.

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Berlin, Sept 15th 2010 — A European Parliament majority accepted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which iterates the calls to European Commissioner Karel de Gucht for more legislative transparency. In a speech before the European Parliament Commissioner Karel De Gucht threatened the United States to leave negotiations when geographical indications would be “discriminated”, that is excluded from the scope of the negotiations on ACTA.

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Strasbourg, Sept 21, 2010 — Today the European Parliament plenary adopted a report on completing the internal market for e-commerce prepared by Spanish rapporteur Pablo Arias Echeverría (EPP). The reports highlights the importance of an open document exchange format for electronic business interoperation and calls on the European Commission to take concrete steps to support its emergence and spread.

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Berlin, Sept 17th 2010 — This week the 5th meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2010) took place in Vilnius. The United Nations organised it as a multi-stakeholder dialogue on global internet governance which inherited from the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

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Berlin, Sept 15th 2010 — A European Parliament majority accepted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which iterates the calls to European Commissioner Karel de Gucht for more legislative transparency. In a speech before the European Parliament Commissioner Karel De Gucht threatened the United States to leave negotiations when geographical indications would be “discriminated”, that is excluded from the scope of the negotiations on ACTA.

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Brussels, 27 July 2010 — According to the EU Ombudsman, citizens have a clear interest in being informed about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Despite this, he concludes for formal reasons that there was no maladministration by the Council of the European Union when it denied access to the ACTA documents.

Related

2010-06-12 Workshop about current developments in software patents and open standards at LinuxTag 2010 in Berlin. 2010-03-16/17/18 Booth of FFII France at “Solutions Linux / Open Source 2010” in Paris, France.

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Washington, D.C., June 29th 2010 — The Supreme Court of the United States delivered its ruling on the Bilski landmark case yesterday. A split court issued a very narrow ruling, avoiding broad decisions on patentability.

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Brussels, June 4th 2010 — The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) may hamper the fight against climate change by inhibiting the diffusion of green technology, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). Behind closed doors, the European Union, United States, Japan and other trade partners are negotiating an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Related

Berlin, May 27th 2010 — Following a recent high court judgement in Germany wireless networks are becoming a legal concern for consumers running open WiFi hotspots. Lawyers and lobby organisations are sending automated cease and desist letters to consumers who have an “insecure” WiFi access point, accusing them of helping unauthorized file sharing by offering open WiFi internet connections.

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Berlin, May 19th 2010 — Today Google announced it would make the VP8 codec open source and royalty-free as part of their WebM project. The codec is on par with other video codecs for high video quality and can be used in the emerging HTML5 web standard for playing video content natively in a web browser.

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Munich, 13 May 2010 — The highest appeal chamber of the European Patent Office, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA), has decided on patents for computer programs. The questions on point of law from President Brimelow were decided to be “inadmissible” under Article 112(1)(b) EPC. It chided the President for bothering the board with her questions.

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Berlin, May 31th 2010 — The European Parliament would spend five million EUR to give an Apple iPad to every Member of Parliament under an “IT mobility” budget earmark, an investigative journalist of the British newspaper Times asserts. An iPad costs around 550 Euro and there are 736 representatives.

Related

Strasbourg, 16 April 2010 – Business Europe fiercely opposes a role for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in patent law. During a conference in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Thierry Sueur of Business Europe disclosed the United Patent Litigation System (UPLS) was aimed to keep the ECJ away from interpreting substantive patent law under the European Patent Convention (EPC), particularly for software patentability.

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Brussels, April 8th 2010 – An ACTA Oversight Committee will undermine the European Parliament’s power in intellectual property rights enforcement, according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). A recently leaked Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) document shows negotiating parties want to create an “Oversight Committee”, which is planned to supervise the implementation and consider the further development of ACTA.

Related

Brussels, April 8th 2010 – Until this week everyone interested in interoperability within the context of public service delivery has been invited to send suggestions aiming at contributing to the implementation of the European Interoperability Strategy. FFII e.V. contributed a short 5 pages opinion paper to the consultation of the European Commission.

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Berlin, March 31st 2010 – On today’s “Document Freedom Day” the German radio stations Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur and Austrian Radio Orange were lauded for their usage of the open Ogg Vorbis format for live streaming. In Berlin staff members of Deutschlandradio received an award certificate and a big cake with the slogan “rOgg on!”.

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Brussels, 10 January 2010 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) calls upon the EU Parliament and member states to remove the intellectual property rights chapter from the EU – Korea Free Trade Agreement. According to the FFII analysis, the free trade agreement is a threat to software companies, companies that use software, and free software projects; this undermines innovation, competitiveness and legal certainty.

Related

2009-12-16 2nd meeting of the CENATIC Advisory Council with the participation as member of Alberto Barrionuevo representing FFII. 2009-12-04 to 13 (possible) meeting with the informatization board of the Cuban Ministry of Communications and Informatics, La Habana, Cuba, by Alberto Barrionuevo.

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Brussels, 6. November 2009 –This week a Dutch journalist, Brenno de Winter, alerted the public about a new draft for an upcoming European Interoperability Framework (EIF) 2.0 communication of the European Commission.

Related

Washington DC, 6 October 2009 — The Foundation for a Free Informational Infrastructure (FFII) and IP Justice filed an Amicus Curiae Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case Bilski v. Kappos is expected to become a landmark ruling on the future of the U.S. patent system.

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Brussels, 21 September 2009 — The EU and South Korea plan to initial a Free Trade Agreement in October. The trade agreement includes civil, border and criminal measures on the enforcement of copyright, trade mark rights, patents and other exclusive rights.

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Brussels, 12 May 2009 — The European Commission is pushing for software patents via a centralised trusted patent court that would be created with the United Patent Litigation System (UPLS), an international treaty that would remove national courts. This court system would be shielded against any review by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

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Brussels, 8 May 2009 — A record number of amicus briefs have been received by European Patent Office (EPO) in their latest attempt to justify granting of software patents. The EPO’s latest attempt to validate their widely criticized practice of software patenting has been met with a much stronger response than expected.

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FFII members participation on critical activities about the European Patent System in Munich on 15th April 2009. Hartmut Pilch invited Richard Stallman to give a speech and educate the public about Software Patents.

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Brussels, 2 April 2009 — The EU Council leaves the possibility open to pass the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) silently during parliamentary vacation. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) opposes such secret legislation.

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Brussels & Munich, 1st April 2009 — After years of confidential work, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) today announce a radical way to improve software patent quality: Binaries-As-Prior-Art, or BAPA. BAPA combines a database of billions of compiled computer programs (“binaries”) with a powerful Cloud search engine that can find any invention in microseconds.

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Brussels, 17 March 2009 — At the highest level of the European Patent Office (EPO), the legality of software patents in Europe is about to be tested. The FFII warns that the European Parliament is being bypassed by allowing a decision with EU-wide implications to be made without its involvement or any real debate.

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Brussels, 13 January 2009 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) has filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against the EU Council for deliberately obstructing access to Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents. As stated by an other participant in the negotiations, the EU has agreed to keep ACTA drafts secret.

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Berlin, 12 December 2008 – Backed by the FFII and other organisations, software developers launch a petition in 28 languages to stop software patents and protect European innovators. The petition asks for legislative clarifications to clear out the legal uncertainty and imbalances created by software patents.

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Paris, Munich, Campos, December 1st 2008 – the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) released during the Open World Forum the first conclusions of its workgroup on Total Information Outsourcing (TIO). TIO is a recent trend in the management of corporate information systems which consists of outsourcing critical information infrastructure to Web based services.

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Brussels, 10th November 2008 – The EU Council of Ministers refuses to release secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) had requested these documents to make public and parliamentary scrutiny possible.

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Brussels, 2nd September 2008 — A global coalition of more than 80 software companies, associations and developers has declared the 24th of September to be the “World Day Against Software Patents”. Five years ago, on 24 September 2003, the European Parliament adopted amendments to limit the scope of patent law and thereby protect small software companies from the harmful effects of broad and trivial software patents.

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Brussels, 04 July 2008 — Amendments to the European Telecommunications directive being rushed through the European Parliament propose a “Soviet internet” where software publishers and internet service providers watch traffic and data for Hollywood. Software and services that run on the internet would have to ask for permission of the regulators.

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Munich, 21 May 2008 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) today endorsed two petitions which call for the use of free and open standards in e-government to ensure all citizens’ rights to fair and equal interaction with political institutions. In a letter [1] to the Members of the European Parliament the association urges them to back these initiatives and implement the requested changes.

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Brussels, 13 May 2008 — European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of the year.

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Brussels, 7 April 2008 — Four years after the European Commission first proposed criminal measures against infringements of so called intellectual property rights, the Commission has started a study to find out whether such measures are actually needed. The study was started half a year after the European Parliament concluded its first reading on the latest proposal, IPRED2, the Criminal Measures directive.

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Brussels, 2 April 2008 — ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process.

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Brussels, Feb 19, 2008 — Nicola Zingaretti, rapporteur on intellectual property rights enforcement in the European Parliament, is calling on the EU to take urgent action against “some internet users”, who in his view are engaging in “the increasingly systematic violation of copyright”. Zingaretti has asked the European Council to provide a time frame for discussion of the draft directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

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What happened in Q3 and Q4 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-11-07 US Ars: Patent holding company targets 131 companies over SMS patents

2007-11-12 UK ClickPress: UK High Court set to review government restrictions on the patenting of software

2007-11-07 US OReilly: Sun’s counter-attack on NetApp and the defense of free software…

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Munich, 7 December 2007 — EPO rules for full revocation after a hearing in the opposition of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII e.V.) against Amazon.com’s infamous patent on the online purchase of gifts. The patent EP927945 is a descendant of the controversial One-Click Patent, which was granted to Amazon in the USA but was partially revoked there due to lack of novelty in October 2007.

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Brussels, 23 October 2007 — EU Commissioner Kroes’ deal with Microsoft creates real dangers to Europe’s growing open source economy, warns the FFII. Using patent licenses that exclude businesses, the software monopolist has turned the EU competition ruling into a victory, and now gets implicit support from the Commission to proceed aggressively against its competitors.

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Brussels, 17 October 2007 — The FFII congratulates Eric S. Maskin, an economist who has long criticised the patenting of software, for receiving the 2007 Nobel Prize for Economics. Prof. Maskin and two colleagues receive the Prize for research into the optimal design of economic mechanisms. By applying his theory to the IT sector, Maskin demonstrated “that in such a dynamic industry, patent protection may reduce overall innovation and welfare.”

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Paris, 1st October 2007 — Wednesday afternoon, during the adoption of the London Protocol to simplify patent translations, a number of deputies raised serious concerns regarding EPLA, the European Patent Litigation Agreement. Former Minister of Justice, M. Pascal Clément was the first to criticize the EPO’s plan: “France runs the risk of entirely abandoning its sovereignty over the matter of patents, to the benefit of a structure which would not even be part of the European Community.”

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Brussels, 1st October 2007 — Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII’s “Kayak Prize 2007”, offered by the FFII in its <NO>OOXML call for rejection of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) standards proposal. The software monopolist is honored as “Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization”.

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Brussels, 17 September 2007 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) says that Microsoft was expecting the 17 September verdict of the EU’s anti-trust case, and will exploit software patents to keep its monopoly grip on the global IT market. FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, “The decision seems positive but it is five years out of date.

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Brussels, 5 September 2007. The draft standard OOXML submitted by Microsoft and ECMA has been rejected in a vote at ISO, reaching neither the required 2/3 majority among “participating countries” nor the required 3/4 majority among all countries.

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Brussels, 1 August 2007 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) warns that two major decisions in September will define the future of interoperability in the key desktop computing market. FFII President Pieter Hintjens explains: “Around the world, national boards of ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) are voting on a proposal to accept ‘Ecma 376’, Microsoft’s Office format, as an international standard.

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What happened in July 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-07-31 US Oreilly: Microsoft Reaches Settlement on EOLAS Patent

2007-07-27 US CodingHorror: The Coming Software Patent Apocalypse

2007-07-31 US internetnews: RealNetworks Case Highlights Sea-Change In Patent Law

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What happened in June 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-06-29 EU IPkat: EPLA or bust?

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Brussels, June 27, 2007 — The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), said that it was putting up a 2,500 Euro prize in its fight against Microsoft’s attempt to gain international standardisation for its Office format. Veteran FFII campaigner Benjamin Henrion, founder of the noOOXML.org site, explains: “Microsoft is spending millions on rent-a-crowd support for international certification for its proprietary Office format, OOXML.

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What happened in May 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-05-30 US ZDNet: Kill the patents, kill the problem

2007-05-30 US eWeek: MS Sees No Conflict with Its Patent/Open Source Initiatives

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Brussels, 4 May 2007 — Over thirty renowned international speakers assemble on 15 and 16 May in Brussels’ Metropole Hotel to discuss the future of the European Patent System. Among the topics being discussed are the recently published plans of the EU Commission for a new European patent system, and recent important decisions in the US Supreme Court, and new data and research from the USA about the impact of the patent system on the high-tech sector.

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Strasbourg, 25 April 2007 — The European Parliament today accepted the IP Criminal Measures directive after its first reading in a vote of 374 to 278, and 17 abstentions. It left several unexamined rights in the scope, and threatens to criminalise consumers and incriminate ISPs.

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Strasbourg, 24 April 2007 – Tomorrow, 25 April, the European Parliament will vote on the first Community criminal law ever, the Criminal Measures IP directive. Last week a coalition representing European consumers, innovators and library associations has called on Members of the Parliament to amend the Criminal Measures IP directive.

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Brussels, 13 April 2007 — On 15 and 16 May, over thirty experts from universities, institutions, government, and industry gather in Brussels to discuss the question “What future for the patent system in Europe?” Among the speakers are William Kovacic, US Federal Trade Commissioner, Ron Marchant, former Chief Executive of the UK Patent Office, Prof. Reto Hilty of the Max Planck Institute, and South African entrepreneur and industry leader Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, Ltd.

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What happened in April 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-04-30 US Reuters: Top court rules for Microsoft on patent (in the ATT vs MSFT case)

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Brussels, 4 April 2007 — EU Commissioner McCreevy today announced his plans for an EU-wide patent law. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, which represents more than 3,000 small-to-medium IT firms and 8,000 IT professionals, says that this proposal is based on flawed assumptions and will make it easier for large US companies to sue small European IT firms.
FFII President Pieter Hintjens explains, “The EU is following the US down the risky path of a central patent jurisdiction, when this experiment has failed miserably in the US.”

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What happened in March 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-03-31 US 43(B)log: What Ifs?

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Brussels, 19 March 2007 — The upcoming vote on Tuesday 20 March on the Criminal Sanctions Directive in the EP’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) is premature and non-transparent. Despite three delays, the issue of criminalising all infringements, even those on unexamined rights, remains unsolved.

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What happened in February 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-02-27 US ZDNet: Tech Policy Summit: Patent Office head lays out reform strategy

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Brussels, 26 February 2007 — The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) vote on the “IPR Enforcement Directive” (IPRED2), originally scheduled for tomorrow, was postponed today for the third time. With this action the European Parliament’s rapporteur, Nicola Zingaretti, sends a strong political signal to the Commission to withdraw or rewrite its proposal.

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What happened in January 2007 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2007-01-31 US Automation: Patent Office validates National Instruments’ LabVIEW Patent

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Brussels, 29 January 2007 — The FFII has sent an open letter to all delegations of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) to oppose with contradictions the “fast track” adoption of the Microsoft’s 6000-page OOXML specification (ECMA-376) before the deadline of February, 5th. Microsoft’s proposal damages the adoption of the existing ISO 26300 standard (OpenDocument) that covers almost the same functionality in just 600 pages.

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What happened in December 2006 concerning software patents and related topics: Latest news linked to dossiers and tutorials provided by FFII and a community of wiki editors. 2006-12-28 US eWeek: Judge Dismisses Patent Lawsuit Against Google